Prelude (The Songs of Aarda Book 1)

by K Schultz

  Isil turned and crossed the bridge back to the south side of the river.

  Sickbed

  Ready for delivery to the nearby village, the finished plow sat on the pushcart outside the forge house. Aelfric glowered at his son. “Your ma is a little better today, but don’t pester her while I’m gone. If she needs help, she’ll call you. Other than that, leave her alone. Don’t you dare tax her strength. Follow my orders, boy, or there’ll be hell to pay when I get back tonight.”

  Laakea nodded and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Just hurry up and leave. “Yes, Pa.” The promise rolled easily off his lips, but his heart thundered inside his chest, and his cheeks burned and colored from telling the lie. Laakea turned away, and Aelfric, busy adjusting the pushcart’s harness, didn’t see his son’s blush.

  When Aelfric finished fussing with the shoulder pads, he shrugged into the harness, grabbed the cart’s handles, and started down the trail toward town. Once Aelfric’s broad back disappeared around the first bend in the rutted path, and the forest obscured both man and cart, Laakea scampered to the house. Confident Aelfric would not return until nightfall, Laakea bounded to the doorway, poked his head inside and gasped. Happy tears welled up and blurred his vision. Shelhera was awake and stirring a pot over the hearth.

  “It’s good to see you up,” Laakea said.

  Shelhera straightened and managed a smile for her only child. She had been bedridden for several tendays.

  Laakea blinked away tears and wrapped her in a hug. His arms had grown longer, but that did not explain how tiny and fragile she seemed, pressed against his chest. Shelhera’s shoulder blades protruded from her back, sharp against the palms of his hands, her body thin and frail through her garment. He pushed his mother to arm’s length and noticed how her flesh had melted away, leaving gray, parchment-thin skin stretched tight over the bones of her face. The strong woman Laakea remembered existed only in his memory.

  Shelhera cradled the boy’s face in her hands. “Don’t cry for me. I feel better than I look today, and I must speak to you while I still can. I want to talk about your father.

  “Aelfric wasn’t always the angry man you see now. When you were little, he carried you on his shoulders and ran around the yard so fast that your hair streamed in the wind. You roared with laughter, and so did he. You couldn’t wait to grow big enough to work the forge with him. I often watched while you sorted nails and fed the forge with charcoal. Our hearts sang with joy once you grew strong enough to fetch water and work the bellows.

  “We were both so proud of you when you took up the hammer and fashioned that first pruning hook, which still hangs in the forge. Remember those good times because they will carry you through life’s trials. Your father loves you.”

  “I have a hard time believing that.”

  “A great destiny awaits you, my son. Pa pushes you hard because he cares, not because he hates you. You must believe it. I know he’s hard on you, but we Eniila are a hard people. Violating our customs and laws bear deadly serious consequences. I have taught you what I can about the Warrior Code, Blood Debts, and Sword Oaths, but your father has still more to teach you.

  “All this is important because someday you must return to Baradon, and to survive there, you will need every skill your father and I taught you. There you will prosper, find a wife, and raise a family of your own.”

  “I wish we were there now. The Greens hate us. They stare at us whenever Pa and I go to Dun Dale, and Raamya’s boys always want to fight with me. Why are we even on Khel Braah? Wouldn’t life be easier if we lived in Baradon with other Eniila instead of on this crappy island with the Greens?”

  “That is your father’s story to tell, not mine, and I pray he tells you before you must face its consequences. I’ve done all I could. I taught you the skills my family passed along — how to build a bow, fletch arrows, and shoot with speed and accuracy. The gods have blessed you with parents who prepared you for life and whatever path those gods set for you.” Shelhera grimaced, stumbled, and clutched Laakea’s shoulder for support.

  “Let me help you back to bed.”

  Shelhera’s face contorted in pain and her knees buckled as Laakea helped her toward the bedroom. Before they reached the doorway, she fainted, but Laakea caught her in his arms. “Fire and damnation,” he cursed. Ma weighs less than a crust of bread.

  Laakea eased his mother’s limp body onto the bed, covered Shelhera with the homespun blanket, and held his breath waiting for her chest to rise. When it did, he drew a deep breath of his own and hoped it would not be her last. Blue veins pulsed beneath the parchment-thin skin of her cold hand. Afraid to let it go, he cradled her hand in his own while he prayed, “Whichever of you gods is listening, save her, don’t let her die because of the effort she made to speak with me. I’m sorry.”

  Road Less Traveled

  Rehaak crossed paths with many carts loaded with early spring vegetables, overwintered turnips, potatoes, and livestock on the road, headed toward Narragan to feed the city. The farm folk, dressed in their homespun woolens, nodded politely to him. The travelers leaving the city this morning were of a different sort. Their ragged clothes and gaunt features marked them as some of the city’s poorest residents.

  Why are they leaving the city? Rehaak increased his pace and caught up to a group with children in tow.

  “Excuse me,” Rehaak said. “I noticed many people like yourselves on the road this morning. Are you headed toward the farms to labor in the fields, or do you have another purpose for leaving the city?”

  “People like us? I’s gobsmacked the likes o’ your lordship would stoop to speak with people like us.”

  Rehaak suspected he and the man were of an age, but careworn lines marked the fellow’s features and made him look older.

  “I am no lord, no one special. Just a fellow traveler expressing an interest in the lives of my companions.”

  “The cut o’ your clothes and your footwear tell me you ain’t no common traveler. You’re a man o’ some wealth, and we hasn’t had the best treatment from your kind o’ folk.”

  “I simply asked a question about your intentions.”

  The wife elbowed her husband. “Calm down, Ferly. We’re free o’ the city now. No more indentured service to the likes o’ him nor anyone else.” Her eyes moved to meet Rehaak’s. “We head southeast across The Spine, the mountains that divide Khel Braah down the middle. There’s lots o’ empty land down south, so we’re headed there to start a new life for us an’ our young’uns.”

  “How do you know you can own the land of which you speak?”

  “Each spring the king grants land in the southern wilderness to Narragan’s poor folks. He sent enough supplies ahead o’ us to get us started if everything goes good. This spring, we won the lottery to go south.”

  “I did not realize the king was so generous.”

  “Oh, it ain’t generosity, is it, Elin?” Ferly said. “Some folks lacks the skills they need to make a life in the wilderness. Many dies before their claims gets proved out. Some dies o’ starvation, others dies of disease, and some gets ate by wolves and other wild beasts. His generosity rids Narragan o’ folks like us. If we makes a life for ourselves and our children down south, then we pays taxes instead o’ livin’ on the dole. Whether we lives or we dies, they be rid o’ us for good.

  “In Narragan, we got no opportunities ‘cept beggin’ or becoming rich men’s bondservants. I don’t fancy seven years o’ work with no pay.”

  “True enough,” Rehaak said. “But don’t the masters feed you and clothe you and provide accommodations for those seven years?”

  “Oh, the master feeds and houses you, right enough, but it ain’t good food, and it ain’t rightly a house. At the end o’ the seven years, you finds yourselves older but no further ahead. Few folks lives long enough to serve a second term o’ bondage. No one survives a third term. Many doesn’t survive a seven-year term if they has a harsh master. Bond-service is a dead end, no
pun intended.”

  “I thought our people were better than the Eniila. What you describe sounds like slavery.”

  “It is slavery. The rich makes noises ‘bout how generous they be and how much they cares for Aarda and its plants and animals. They makes vast offerings at the temples, but they oppresses poor folks like us to pay for those offerings and those temples.

  “We’re used to hard lives and rough conditions. The wilderness can’t be much worse, so we takes the challenge because we got nothin’ else. The Cherith Pass is clear of snow, and if we don’t dawdle along the way, we has time to get seed in the ground a’fore spring is over.”

  Rehaak nodded. Once he reached the crossroads, he had planned to consider his options. There was no reason to go home to Sanchal, his birthplace on the west end of Lake Korath. Rehaak doubted his family would welcome his return, and there was no point revisiting places he had already seen.

  The Nethera might ignore the southern wilderness because of the sparse population, and the lack of history would shield him from his obsession. There were no ancient rotting ruins scattered about the forest-clad slopes or the grassy plains, so clues about the Aetheriad were unlikely. Besides, Rehaak knew no one who lived in the wild, barren place, and that alone justified the journey. He had only traveled western Khel Braah until now. The southeast might improve his chances of survival.

  If he rationed his gold, it would sustain him, and when his gold ran out, he would find another way to support himself. It was how he had spent his wandering years before he settled in Narragan.

  I will head south, beyond the mountains. Perhaps I can make a home in one of the new settlements and find some hope to call my own, like these other people. Meanwhile, I still remember how to live on very little.

  Besides, Shivar, with its mineral springs and healing center, is along the road near Cherith Pass. I can continue my journey after a good soak and a massage. Just what I need.

  Going South

  The trip from Narragan to the city of Shivar near the Cherith Pass, the gateway to the southeast, had been a pleasant seven-day stroll. He had spent several nights in Shivar, bathed in the mineral springs at the foot of the mountains, and feasted in the restaurants catering to wealthy aristocrats. His rapidly lightening purse forced him to cut short his indulgences and climb the steep road to the Cherith Pass, where the snow lingered in shadowed hollows like winter’s ghosts.

  After leaving Shivar, his trip became less pleasant. Rehaak panted and sweated his way to the summit of the Cherith Pass. Once through the pass, he spent long, uneventful days tramping the dusty road. The days usually ended with a fitful sleep in a bedbug-infested hovel disguised as an inn. The farther he got from the city, the less people worked at disguising their hovels and the larger and more vicious the bedbugs became. Resentment for his exile festered like the itchy red welts that covered him from scalp to ankle.

  The city was never Rehaak’s home, but he had lived in comfort there. His life and business, built on deceit and fakery, provided everything he needed. Rehaak lived well in Narragan, but all that remained of his former life were the clothes he wore and the items he carried in his pack. He was free to go where the wind took him, free from the relentless expectations and demands of others, but his freedom had a sharp edge to it. The specter of destruction still haunted his thoughts and dreams.

  Rehaak’s infatuation with freedom had a short lifespan once its ugly underbelly reintroduced itself. I’m free alright, free to starve, to be savaged and devoured by wild animals, or be beaten by robbers. The elation Rehaak experienced at leaving Narragan fell away with the miles. It brought him no happiness on days when the wind off the plains buffeted him and blew dust into his eyes.

  The ruins dotting western Khel Braah were absent here, and the daily grind of tramping up and down hills lost its luster after the first day, let alone the several tendays following. The pleasant farmlands and orchards, the picturesque towns and the busy roads between Narragan and Shivar had kept him distracted, but they lay far behind him. The highway on either side looked the same today, as it had every day since he crossed the mountains.

  There were days he almost wished robbers would set upon him. An attack would at least break the monotony of plodding along in the dust. Rehaak hummed or sang aloud to distract himself from negative thoughts, but he discovered he could sing and still think.

  An occasional wagon headed cityward or poor settlers going south to new lives relieved the monotony, but the road saw little use at this time of year. The colonists had passed by while Rehaak lingered in Shivar and soaked in the mineral hot springs, and the farmers, busy planting their fields, stayed home. Settlements in the southeast — what few there were — contained a handful of houses inhabited by people whose hostile or suspicious stares propelled him on his way. His clothes marked him as a city-dwelling dandy who cheated people like them. Rehaak felt their anger and mistrust radiate over him like waves of heat while he plodded past their fields and crofts.

  It was early spring. The grass along the roadways sent new green shoots skyward. Roadside trees hinted at leaves but kept them safe, curled and hidden inside buds on their branch tips. Farmers, hands firm on their plow handles and eyes focused on the mithun — ox-like creatures pulling the plows, wouldn’t spare a breath to converse with him. They turned the soil, leaving straight furrows and the smell of damp fertile earth in their wake. Today the road was empty, and loneliness shadowed him like a faithful hound.

  Where there were no villages or towns within a day’s walk along the road, the king had erected mansios. Mansios, simple shelters for travelers with a roof and walls to keep out the wind and rain, often stank of stale sweat and other less agreeable odors. Rehaak grew tired of sleeping in dirty, vermin-infested inns or crowded, odorous mansios, but those were the good nights. There were other nights, long nights, when he alternated between sleeping and shivering under the stars.

  Although Rehaak still remembered how to live on very little, it seemed harder than before, or perhaps just harder than he remembered. So much so he almost wept for joy when the town of Twinbridge crested the horizon. It had taken Rehaak four tendays to make his way southeastward since exiting the pass.

  Twinbridge was a prosperous town along the banks of the Stone Song River. The road south had followed the river, which wound downward from the high mountains over a rocky riverbed. The two bridges that spanned both sides of a fork in the river gave the town its name. One bridge led westward toward the mountains, and the other followed the river southward to the coast. Though villages were frequent, towns were rare, and rarer still were decent inns. Tears pooled in the corners of Rehaak’s eyes when he discovered Twinbridge not only had a proper inn but a bathhouse too.

  Twinbridge

  Once soaked and scrubbed, Rehaak donned a change of clothes and sauntered the short distance down the darkened street to the Lone Wolf Inn. Light shone from the two-story stone structure’s windows, beckoning locals and travelers alike to partake of its comforts. He swung the door open and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light inside the crowded interior.

  The patrons of the establishment gave him a momentary glance, then returned to their conversations or their drinks. Rehaak strode to a vacant spot at a table near the stairway to the second floor. His tablemates ignored him until the waitress arrived and he fished a silver piece from his purse and laid it on the table.

  “I will have a mug of whatever these fine gentlemen are drinking, and bring them more of the same.” The men raised their mugs in salute. Despite the difference in their ages, the similarity of their features suggested they were close relatives.

  The oldest of the three men eyed Rehaak from under bushy eyebrows. “So, what brings a fine gentleman like you to Twinbridge? Is you checking up on those fools what the king sends down here to labor for Raamya in the forest?”

  “No. I came to join them.” Rehaak’s companions smirked behind their hands. “Life in the capital became tiresome and constrictin
g. I have some modest skills at healing and herblore that folks might find useful. Do you gentlemen work for this Raamya fellow?”

  “No. We’d never work for that tree-butchering tightwad. We has honest, profitable work. My brothers and I be rope makers.”

  “Ropemakers, you say. Where do you obtain the materials to ply your trade?” Rehaak glanced at the two younger men, but the older man answered.

  “There be plenty of fiber nearby, though if you came from Narragan, you wouldn’t have spied it yet. Across the bridge west of town lies a sea of grass what stands as tall as a man’s shoulders. When it be green, the grass be stiff and flint-sharp, sharp enough to slice the skin off your bones and cut your clothing to shreds. Once it dies, the weathered fibers be strong enough to make rope and cordage. We sells what we produces in Aeron Suul, the port on the south coast. It be a profitable trade. The sailors in Aeron Suul sell our rope in Baradon. There is none finer to be had anywhere.”

  “What can you tell me about New Hope?” Rehaak’s vision blurred as he emptied a second mug. Another round of ale finally loosened the younger men’s tongues, although it slurred their speech.

  The youngest brother chortled. “Most folks what comes from Narragan has no clue ‘bout how hard life is out there. They end up as loggers for Raamya or slaving in his lumber mill for paltry wages. Darn few make a go of it on their own. That’s why folks hereabouts calls the town No Hope or Not a Hope in Hell. Does that tell you anything?”

  Rehaak laughed along with them as he emptied a third mug, which made the room spin and tilt before his bleary eyes.

  .

  Rehaak had slept in a real bed after the festivities. At least he awakened in a bed; how he got there remained a mystery. Rehaak had lost count after the third tankard of the local brew, much to his regret this morning when his head threatened to explode and diarrhea started. He wished he had brought his herbal cures, and he made a mental note to locate medicinal herbs at his first opportunity.