They sat in silence. The chatter of the elves and the crackling of their campfire drowned out the sounds of the forest.
‘How are you faring?’
Gulliver shook his head.
‘Why did they cut off your…’ Kairos could not bring himself to finish the sentence.
Gulliver sighed. ‘To hamper my ability to fight. Now I’m less of a threat… though I don’t suppose that I ever was much of one.’
A rock suddenly struck Gulliver in the head. It was a small rock and didn’t cause any harm, but the elves around the campfire laughed. After a few moments they began talking of other matters and soon forgot about their prisoners. Gulliver sat in silence while Kairos contemplated the recent events.
He swallowed, trying to form the words to his next question. ‘Did she… suffer for long?’
‘A bit,’ said Gulliver in a voice choked with grief. ‘They left her for dead after she was stabbed, but she was still alive after they cut off my fingers. Then, they made Henrik watch as they removed her hair from her scalp. The one known as Captain Hargonnas finally cut her throat. I tried to help, but you can see what happened.’
‘Why would they do such a thing?’
‘Human hair is valued among the dark elf nobles. They use them as wigs.’
Kairos could listen no more. He turned away abruptly, causing his head to flare in pain, and spat. He glared at the elves around the campfire, his rage burning like the flames.
* * *
Kairos dreamt of Farina that night. She was pleading with him to save her. In his dream, he leapt to her rescue, slaying all of her attackers with savage fury. He took her back to Logres where he was the hero who discovered the new land across the sea, and his peers marvelled at Farina’s beauty. They held him in awe and respect. Somehow, Thylar had survived the battle at sea and returned to throw a feast in Kairos’s honour. Farina sat by his side at the mead hall, smiling at him.
But then he awoke the following morning to his sad reality of being a prisoner. Her corpse was back at the barn, unburied, and the thought troubled him. Would her spirit rest in the afterlife?
Farina became the focus of Kairos’s every waking thought. All of his rage and regret at the loss of his brother and fellow Einar and the self-loathing he felt at having failed to protect Farina seethed within him. Farina’s murderers, the same men who slaughtered the Einar, stood in front of him gloating about their deeds. Kairos’s anger burned throughout the day until it finally hardened into a steel-like resolve. He swore by Rudras that he would avenge Farina, Thylar, and his fellow Einar.
However, the men responsible for their deaths were many, and he was but one, tied up and helpless. He would have to survive, bide his time, until the right opportunity arose. For now, he would follow their commands and comply. He fought back the tears that threatened to flow and swallowed the knot in his throat. He would let none of his anguish show on his face. His captors did not deserve that satisfaction.
The elves broke their fast that morning, leaving the prisoners the unwanted leftovers, which was bread hard enough to break their teeth. As they left the camp, it began to rain, and they trudged along, miserable and sodden. The remaining griffons and their riders departed first, presumably to return to the ships banked on the coast of Cape Caipora to update them of the incoming prisoners. The one known as Captain Hargonnas stayed behind with the rest of his men, sending his griffon ahead. They were far from any settlements and no one was going to offer any resistance, Kairos thought. No one would save them.
A dull ache throbbed in Kairos’s chest. It had begun after the battle at sea and intensified when Farina died. He shuffled along, unaware of his surroundings. His shoulders slumped as if carrying a great burden, and he tripped over an unseen tree root and sprawled onto the forest floor.
‘Get up, you lout,’ the guard said, kicking at Kairos’s rear. The elf was lithe and had a severely upturned nose, reminding him of a sickly pig that Uncle Vinh once had.
Kairos winced in pain from the guard’s blows, which struck his already bruised and battered body. He wanted to fall and never get up, but he knew what would happen. And his pain was still nothing compared to what Gulliver faced. The young knight grew weaker by the hour, and he stumbled incessantly. Whenever he fell, the elven guard would shout and kick until the weakened knight picked himself off the ground and hobbled along. Kairos wondered how Gulliver managed.
Henrik walked in front of Kairos, streams of tears leaving streaks on his grimy face. He followed the elves’ orders without hesitation and was left alone. Captain Hargonnas took a personal interest in him, and even made sure the boy was fed as well as the elves. Occasionally, Henrick turned and flashed Kairos a look of resignation, despair. That look wounded Kairos more than any blow the guards could muster.
Kairos wondered if the boy blamed him for his sister’s death. He could not fault Henrik for that. He blamed himself, feeling responsible for everything. He should have been the one who died. Those elves would have never attacked Milbrooke if he had not come to this land.
Yet, despite his inner turmoil, he held onto that rage he felt for Farina’s death. Whenever the guards were not looking, he slowly worked his way to loosen his bonds. To his grim amusement, Kairos noticed that the elf who bound him did not excel at knot-tying. Either that, or perhaps the Einar were more proficient, because he had himself free within a few hours, but he pretended that his restraints held until he found the perfect opportunity. He would probably die in the process, but he vowed to kill Captain Hargonnas before he went down. He saw Farina’s hair hanging from the light elf’s belt, and vowed again to avenge her.
The opportunity came sooner than Kairos expected.
It was sometime around midday when Gulliver collapsed onto the ground and did not get up. No amount of painful motivation from the frustrated guard could get the wounded knight to stir. After a few kicks from the pig-nosed elf, another of his comrades muttered something and drew a sword. Kairos’s heart lurched at the sight. Gulliver had risked so much for him, and now he would die in the forest like this. This was not the right time, but he had to act. He owed the knight that much. He would simply join Thylar and Farina much sooner.
Kairos slipped out of his bonds and took a step towards the pig-nosed elf, who was facing away from him towards Gulliver. He had a simple plan: take the pig-nosed elf’s sword, kill him, and fight to the death. He reached for the sword’s hilt.
‘Kairos,’ Henrik cried, ‘Don’t do it!’
The pig-nosed elf, along with every other elf in the squad, turned as Kairos’s hand brushed the sword hilt. The Einar lunged, but the elf jumped away and within a second, the other elves drew their swords and closed in.
Kairos gave a long sigh. Henrick had unwittingly given him away. He resigned himself to fate.
Before the elves could make another move, something whirred past Kairos. The elf who was about to finish off Gulliver suddenly staggered backwards. Several jagged shards of stone protruded from him. The pig-nosed elf pitched forward, nearly landing on Kairos. The other elves turned in time to see another volley tear into them. In a matter of seconds, only Henrik, Kairos, and three elves remained standing.
Kairos did not know what to do, except crouch down to avoid the magical projectiles.
A dozen armour-plated men appeared behind Kairos, led by a tall man with sandy yellow hair and a flowing moustache. They brandished the shiny, blue-tipped mana lances like Gulliver had. Two of the elves took off, fleeing into the thicket, while the other one made a few sweeping gestures with his hand, causing an orange light to glow. Kairos, remembering the luminescent projectiles from his battle at sea, knew what was coming next.
The armoured men braced themselves as a fireball burst forth and struck them. To Kairos’s astonishment, nothing happened. Were his eyes playing tricks? The fireball seemed to have struck an invisible force and dissipated harmlessly.
The leader of the armoured men stepped forward and traced a sign of his own. A
much brighter light flared, and Kairos had to close his eyes from its brilliance. The explosion knocked him from his feet, and when he opened his eyes, he no longer saw the elf standing. The armoured men and their leader looked unscathed. Then he realised that the blast had flung the elf at least twenty feet away, his body was charred and his limbs twisted in contorted angles.
Kairos panicked. His captors were defeated, only to be replaced by a more fearsome group. They didn’t look like elves, but in this foreign land, one could never be too sure. Were they Mana Knights like Gulliver? They carried the same weapons as he did, and appeared human. Kairos had no time to consider the answer. Instead, he tried to run for the sword of one of the fallen elves, but some of the newly arrived men saw his intention and cut him off, reaching the sword first. They screamed something at him, but the battle lust had taken over and he did not understand what was said. Instead, he focused on the fair-haired man in the silver-coloured mail, who wore a bemused expression. Kairos had seen that man use incredible magic and assumed that he was the biggest threat, the leader.
There was a long branch near his feet, so Kairos picked it up and swung it at the moustached-man, who used his strange spear to parry the branch, and the wood snapped like a brittle twig. When the man saw this, he began to laugh. This enraged Kairos, thinking the man was humiliating and toying with him, so he charged again, this time with half the branch length, and beat at the man. He continued laughing and batted Kairos’s hand with the spear, knocking the branch out of his grip. Unarmed, Kairos screamed and began hitting at the man with his fists, but the man thought it all very funny, as an unseen force repelled Kairos’s blows. The man swept Kairos’s feet out with the spear and several men rushed forward to subdue him as he flailed at them.
‘Wait,’ a guttural but weak voice – Gulliver’s voice – said. ‘He’s with me.’
The men stopped, noticing Gulliver on the ground. They lifted Kairos to his feet and brought him forward to the fair-haired man who easily bested him. Kairos was puzzled. These men used magic, yet they fought the elves, and even though they had subdued Kairos, himself, they had not caused him any harm. Kairos could not be sure. Everything was backwards in this strange land. The leader, who had bested him, came forward to look Kairos up and down, a twinkle of amusement still flickering in his eyes.
And that was how Kairos met Galen Avenal, Dragon-class Mana Knight, one of the most powerful humans in Ordonia… whom he tried to best with a stick.
* * *
The Mana Knights had the element of surprise that day. They saw Gulliver’s signal fire at Cape Caipora’s lighthouse from the nearest watch tower in the mountains east of Gersholm, but did not light the subsequent signal fires to carry on the message to Vadost. Instead, they sent a messenger on the fastest steed to Valour Keep, the stronghold of the Mana Knights. The knights, in turn, despatched their best, Galen Avenal, along with his chosen men, to investigate. Vadost was a long trek away from Cape Caipora, but they made good time.
Galen had cursed under his breath, something he rarely did, when he saw the smoke from the direction of Milbrooke. First the signal fire, now this. He was on the verge of retirement, and his years of experience told him that this whole expedition was about to get very complicated.
And it did.
They arrived too late to help the villagers. Corpses littered the little hamlet. The enemy, Malus’s agents, still lingered, and some of the younger knights wanted to rush in right away from their hiding place in the forest to take vengeance, but Galen held them in check. He understood their feelings, yet he hadn’t become a Dragon Knight by acting on pure emotion. Watch and observe. Thus, he and the knights saw the elves departing with captives.
Galen sent his scouts ahead and made his retinue of knights travel under the cover of darkness to avoid alerting the griffon-riders. He knew his knights could take on a patrol of elves and the dwarves, but those flying mounts would create quite the problem. More unsettling was the fact that the scouts returned and reported more of Malus’s ships at Cape Caipora. Galen had not expected to find such a large fleet, especially as Malus had been quiet since his defeat twenty years ago, and while the Dragon Knight’s force was formidable, he could not hope to attack an entire fleet that included griffons. This brought Galen to his next concern: Why attack now? First the lighthouse and now Milbrooke – all Ordonian territory. Malus was risking all-out war, and for what? These hamlets would earn him nothing, particularly not the godshard that his army desired. The dark elf was up to something and he was desperate; the knight was eager to discover the reasons.
Galen had hoped defeating the small regiment of elves and rescuing the prisoners would answer his questions, but he had more questions and no enemy captives. He sent his men to pursue the two elves who had escaped, and they came back empty-handed. Galen and the other knights buried the fallen elves and tended to the prisoners, especially Gulliver, whose injuries worried and angered all of the knights.
That was now several days ago, and they were in Gersholm, the other settlement near Cape Caipora. Due to the circumstances in Milbrooke, Galen used his force to fortify this small settlement against a potential attack. The knights could use the place as their base of operations, and when Galen was satisfied enough with the preparations, he would leave for Vadost. Gulliver was coming back once he was fit for travel. The little boy, Henrik, had family in the city.
There was one other concern, however.
As they sat in the tavern of the small settlement, Galen regarded the strange boy before him intently, and made a few deductions.
Judging by his rough, uncouth accent, in which Galen had trouble placing its origins, the boy was not from around here, and he had obviously grown up in an environment of violence. He also seemed extra skittish, flailing about when Galen tried to cast a healing spell on him; that could have been a result of his recent treatment from the elves, or perhaps from abusive parenting. Or maybe, Galen wondered, the boy had a mistrust of magic, which was an oddity for a non-dwarf, and often a sign of mental illness in humans. Either way, he felt a profound sense of pity for the boy.
‘I’m Galen,’ the knight said to him. ‘What is your name?’
‘Kairos,’ replied the boy, ‘son of Karthok.’
The boy’s chest swelled with pride, and he looked directly at Galen as he spoke, though his hands trembled on the table. The older knight was impressed. He intimidated most young men, and they either stuttered or stared at the floor or their feet or anywhere except at him, as though they expected him to tear into them and eat them for dinner. Not this boy, though. He seemed to face his fears head on, despite being shaken.
‘What a strange name. How old are you?’ Galen asked.
‘Fifteen. Almost sixteen.’
The boy held his dark grey eyes fixed and unwavering on the knight. They held too much knowledge, too much experience for fifteen years – too much travesty, too much pain. Galen thought of his daughter, who was close to the same age and wondered how she was doing.
‘Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?’ Galen asked.
Kairos did not answer. He regarded the older knight with suspicion, as if expecting a tin of poison or a sudden attack.
‘Did the elves wound your ears? Did the sound of my magic deafen you?’
‘I’m hungry,’ Kairos admitted.
‘So you can hear after all,’ Galen said. ‘There’s chicken here, bread, and cheese, and ale. Could you break off a piece of bread? Gulliver says you were shipwrecked. It’s obvious you’re not from these lands.’
‘Is Gulliver well?’ Kairos asked.
‘As well as he can be.’ Galen’s cheerful face took on a scowl as he took his piece of bread. ‘My healing spells cannot regenerate severed fingers, but he will be fine otherwise. What about you? Where are you from?’
‘Logres,’ Kairos said.
‘Logres?’ Galen repeated the unfamiliar word. ‘I haven’t heard of it. Where is it?’
‘Across the se
a.’
Galen flashed Kairos a bemused look. He wondered if the boy meant some small island north of Ordonia or was conjuring up a lie. ‘Tell me more about your home then.’
Kairos saw the look and glanced away. ‘I’d rather not.’
‘Fair enough, but I want you to know that I’m here to help. If you seek to return home, then I can aid you in that. And no, I’m not plotting something against you.’ Galen saw the boy’s expression contort into one of distrust. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want my help. Just know that it takes several days of travel from here to any other settlement, and you don’t seem to have the provisions or a single coin on you.’
Kairos licked his lips. His gaze dropped, fixed on his now-empty plate. The hands, long and slender, curled inward. ‘My homeland,’ he said in a flat voice, ‘is very far away from here. We sailed for over a month, past the deep sea. Past the sea serpents. It’s a place we call Logres, a land we share with kobolds and cyclops.’
The knight’s eyes widened when he heard mention of the sea serpents. No Ordonian, elf, dwarf, or (as far as he knew) gnome had ever crossed the sea. He wanted to disbelieve the boy’s claim, but somehow, the seriousness of those unwavering grey eyes spoke the truth. ‘Go on,’ Galen said gently.
‘Our land is dying. The plants, the animals. It’s the Blight. We’ve been living on mostly fish from the sea for several years, but we have to sail farther and farther out to get them.’ Kairos lifted his gaze in defiance, ready to defend his claims. When he found the older knight regarding him with rapt attention, the boy relaxed and the words flowed out, as if a vein were cut open.
‘Everyone back home thinks that Logres was the only land to survive when the gods warred amongst themselves. We never knew that this place existed. Every day was a struggle to live, and we became desperate, so my father and brother...’ Kairos paused and swallowed. He gritted his teeth, then continued, ‘So they decided to embark on an expedition to find a new land. We had three longships. Everything was going well until we met them.’
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