Prelude (The Songs of Aarda Book 1)

by K Schultz

  “If you live in denial long enough, it will kill you. As an apprentice blacksmith, I can tell you the knives are not brigands’ weapons. Those knives are too expensive for common thieves. The metal is a mystery, as are the runes crafted into the blades. These are exotic weapons, and common criminals can’t afford such arcane weaponry. That leaves the matter of the tattoos. Did you notice if the others bore marks across their chests and shoulders?”

  “I do not remember. Isil and I did not examine the bodies. We were in a hurry to reach shelter before nightfall, but the ones who attacked me here at the cabin had those markings.”

  “There are larger forces at work. Someone controls these men—a person with power, money, and influence. The man or woman behind the ambushes wants the attacks to look like ordinary crimes, but there is nothing common about the men or their weapons. Rehaak, you have a powerful enemy. Someone wants you dead and will spare no effort or expense to end your life.”

  “What can I do?” Rehaak’s heart skipped a beat. “I expected safety here in the back end of creation.”

  “There are many places for you to hide, but many places your enemies can hide too. Concealing a crime is easier where fewer eyes can witness it. Perhaps the fellow who wants you dead needed you isolated and alone, so your death would go unnoticed.”

  “So I have a powerful enemy, and the one safe place I thought I had is not so safe after all. An unpleasant thought to start the day.” Rehaak threw off the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “No, it’s not pleasant, but each time those men attacked, you received help from unexpected sources. It shows you also have a mighty friend.”

  Rehaak stood, stretched, and groaned. “Aelfric taught you much wisdom.”

  “I hadn’t realized how much Pa taught me or its value, but now I am beginning to appreciate those lessons.”

  Laakea grew somber and stood stiffly at attention as he spoke his next words. “I will join you in your quest, Rehaak, and I swear a Sword Oath to you to defend you and protect you. I call on the Creator to witness this oath, to bind me to it in life, and to strengthen me in it until death. Do you accept my oath to you?”

  Laakea had included the name of his charge, the task at hand, the name of the god he followed, and the duration of the oath. He bowed low as he completed the ritual Aelfric had taught him. Laakea was now sword sworn to Rehaak and would fulfill the pledge or perish.

  “Laakea, your oath boggles my mind. I have always gone wherever the wind blew me, loyal to myself and no one else. I have had no companions who promised to protect me, nor did I ever promise loyalty to anyone. I cannot understand that level of commitment, nor have I had a friend who would give his life for me, and I am not sure I want the responsibility, especially as young as you are. Neither of us knows what lies ahead.” Tears welled up in Rehaak’s eyes. “I accept your gift and swear loyalty to you.” His voice broke, and he wiped away the tears on his cheeks.

  “We are sword bound to each other as companions, adventurers, and brothers. Now that we stand together, the next step is to examine the blades. Try to decipher the runes on them.” Laakea’s posture eased. “I hope they give you clues since I can’t read them.

  Once you have recovered, two more bits of business remain. First, I must meet my father and settle things between us, and second, if I survive the meeting, I must complete my journeyman blacksmith project.” Laakea waited for Rehaak to respond.

  “But what if he challenges you to trial by combat?”

  “We’ll worry about it if it becomes a problem. I want to make peace with my father and redeem my honor. If it’s impossible, then I’ll submit to trial by combat, as is our custom. If I lose, my Sword Oath will bind my father to you, and he must protect you as I would.”

  Rehaak shook his head. The resolve in the youngster’s eyes and tone revealed a warrior’s conviction and commitment. My young friend is a formidable force for good. I can’t change his mind. “Is that all?”

  “I need access to my father’s forge to complete my journeyman project.”

  “I understand you must leave on the best terms possible with your father. No man should venture into danger before he makes peace with those he loves, but why is the journeyman project so important?”

  “Rehaak, your words sound strange. It is many seasons since I felt any love for my father or my father’s love for me. You make me wonder if my love for him is still there, hidden under the hurt and anger.” Laakea looked cryptic and said, “If I survive, I’ll make weapons to keep us alive, and they will be my journeyman project. I will forge the knives used against us into swords to protect us. I must finish my apprenticeship; a man should always finish what he starts.”

  “When do we start this journey, Sword Brother?”

  “As soon as you heal,” Laakea said.

  Revelation

  Several tendays passed before Rehaak was ready to travel. He used his time trying to decipher the runes on the blades, but they shifted and changed before his eyes, just as they had for Laakea. At first, he blamed his head wound, but when he read other things without difficulty, he dismissed the idea. The blades were ensorcelled; when he tried to focus on them, the runes slipped away like snakes coated in oil.

  While Laakea collected his arrows and packed, Rehaak practiced with the sling and regained the skill he had as a youngster. Rehaak said, “Why such a hurry? The forge will not disappear. Isil will return soon, and I want you to meet her.”

  “The sooner I get home and face my father, the sooner you’ll get Pa’s protection, or I’ll have the weapons I need. If we wait around here, you may get attacked again before we leave. I’ve made peace with my decision. I’m ready to face the consequences and accept my fate.”

  Rehaak finally decided to leave Isil a message at the cabin, telling her where to find them. On their way to New Hope, Laakea and Rehaak stopped at the mill where Riata and her husband asked about Rehaak’s bandaged head. Rehaak reached up and touched the bandage that had aroused the family’s curiosity. He grimaced and said, “I ran into a bit of trouble the night I left your house. I don’t remember much of what happened, but Laakea can tell you the story.”

  “A bit of trouble? Don’t minimize the incident, Rehaak. Six armed men attacked him and almost killed him. He managed to kill one before they almost scalped him with one of their weapons. I arrived in time to deal with the other five. In fact, I thought he was dead at first, but I managed to patch him up, and that explains the bandage on his head.

  Rehaak nodded and said, “Yes, I owe Laakea my life, but I must make some introductions before we go any farther.”

  “Laakea, this is Gael, who runs the mill, Riata, his wife, Bram, who is eight, Steen, who’s five, and Uele is...goodness, I have forgotten. How old are you, Uele?” The little girl peeking out from behind her father’s legs held up four fingers. “That’s right, you’re four. How could I have forgotten?”

  “I’s almost six,” Steen said. He stood on tiptoe. “And I’s big now.”

  Uele looked up at her father. “Laakea looks funny, Poppy.”

  “Hush, child. Where are your manners?” Gael’s face darkened, the Abrhaani equivalent of a blush.

  Laakea laughed. “I do look funny, don’t I, Uele? I bet you’ve seen no one like me.”

  Uele shook her head and hid her eyes against Gael’s thigh.

  “You must stay for supper,” Riata said. “Bram, honey, set two extra plates for Rehaak and his friend.”

  “We will not impose—”

  “Nonsense, it’s no bother. We have plenty of food. You’ll stay the night too. We won’t let you travel alone after dark. Not after what happened the last time.”

  THEY SET OUT EARLY the next morning. After they bid the Millers goodbye, Laakea said, “The only Abrhaani family I’ve known is Raamya’s. The way the Millers treat their children is marvelous. I assumed that Abrhaani families were like my own. Raamya shouts at his boys and often hits them, just like my father did with me. Are
other Abrhaani families like the Millers or like Raamya’s? I have never played the games their children play. My childhood was all work and combat practice, but it doesn’t bother me.”

  Rehaak nodded. “Yes, the Millers are a typical Abrhaani family, but some parents are like Raamya too.”

  After they passed through New Hope and detoured around Dun Dale via a game trail, their journey to Aelfric’s house became a long dull hike through the forest in the summer heat. But as Laakea’s birthplace drew near, the gnats and chiggers which buzzed around them, hoping to snatch a meal from their veins reminded the boy of carrion flies buzzing around a corpse.

  Although Rehaak told the boy humorous stories and jokes along the trail, Laakea’s earlier confidence had turned brittle as ice and melted as they drew near his childhood home.

  They paused atop a ridge. The view reminded Laakea how much he had changed. He had hated the hours of combat practice, but now he valued every moment spent on weapons skills. As Rehaak’s Sword Brother, I will need those skills to keep us both alive.

  Despite his earlier denial, Laakea mourned the loss of his childhood. When they reached the lip of the valley overlooking his old home, it was still early afternoon. Laakea scowled, teeth gritted, his eyes as grim as death, surveyed the valley.

  “This valley is beautiful, small wonder your father picked this location.”

  Laakea replied, “I doubt he picked it for its beauty. He chose it for the iron and the trees to make the charcoal he needed.” But Rehaak’s comment made him perceive the valley afresh.

  The balmy air caressed the leaves of the trees with a lover’s hand. Sunlight sparkled through the foliage until it glowed incandescent green. The aspens and fruit trees danced and swayed to the silent music of the breeze. Pines and firs, like gloomy old men, stood back, too stiff to join in the dance but longing to take part. The faint quiver of their branches betrayed their desire and excitement.

  Sunlight lit the cloud tops with swirls of pastel colors piled atop layers of dark gray and purple. The grass glowed with the dawn’s energy and inhaled its first breath of a new day filled with promise and possibility. The air, sweet and thick, brimmed with enough fragrance to cast a blue haze on the distant hills.

  Birds sang to encourage each other, and Laakea somehow understood their language. Golden sunbeams filtered through the branches and found their way to the forest floor. By divine revelation, he realized his home was a place of mystery and wonder, his to protect.

  The Golden Voice spoke. “Laakea, your calling and privilege are to protect the weak, preserve the land, fight injustice, and serve me always.”

  Goodness extended from the highest cloud to the deepest bedrock. It included Laakea and yet set him apart, consecrated as its guardian. A torrent of joy flowed into him, filled him, and when he could no longer contain it, bliss ran down his cheeks as tears. How had he missed its wonder for all his thirteen years? How could he refuse the call once he saw the splendor and perfection of Aarda?

  Laakea had found his life’s work, or rather, it had found him. He understood his purpose; his spirit leaped and danced joyfully inside him, and he whispered, “Yes, although the task is far too massive for me. Yes, though it may cost my life. Yes,” he answered for a final time, and the full burden settled on his young shoulders.

  Three affirmations sealed his pledge, and Laakea crossed the invisible barrier between youth and adulthood. He accepted his duties with pride, and his commitment bound him with the same force as his Sword Oath to Rehaak. No one had ever pledged a Sword Oath to an entire world.

  The person Laakea thought of as the Golden Voice was Rehaak’s Faithful One, and the Creator had spoken. Laakea had sworn a Sword Oath to the Creator of the world. Is it possible to swear such an oath? I felt compelled to do it...what have I done? I must be mad!

  Laakea became conscious of Rehaak watching him, and his face reddened. He had always hated emotional displays, but since he and Rehaak became friends, he found it less embarrassing. The red flush spread, burning warmly across his neck and face. I should tell Rehaak. He opened his mouth, but the moment slipped away when Rehaak spoke.

  “It is a lovely place, even more beautiful than my piece of paradise. I wonder if we will ever see either of them again once we begin our quest.”

  Laakea remained silent while he looked across the valley of his former home and contemplated sharing his revelation with Rehaak. One day but not yet...or it might never come. It may all end today anyway.

  Laakea hitched up his belt and squared his shoulders. I’ve come this far...can’t turn back now.

  At first, Laakea could not tell what had changed in the valley. Then he noticed the lack of smoke coming from the house’s fieldstone chimney. From farther up the valley, the bloomery and the forge, where his father usually worked, also sat cold and deserted.

  The sheep pen was empty, and the gate hung open. Laakea experienced a mixture of relief and panic at the missing fires and animals. He chewed his lip, hitched up the pack containing the long knives, and jogged downhill with Rehaak hard on his heels.

  Laakea’s Homecoming

  Rehaak trotted after Laakea on the trail leading down the rocky ridgeline into the valley. Sweat soaked his tunic and dripped off his chin while he followed Laakea toward an uncertain and dangerous homecoming. The trail looped and twisted through the tall evergreens covering the upper slope. Because of the thick shade, few plants grew in the forest’s understory. A welcome breeze cooled Rehaak’s skin while they walked the shaded path between the gigantic evergreens. As they drew closer to Aelfric’s forge on the valley floor, saplings and bracken ferns replaced the giant trees growing further upslope.

  Once they drew nearer the forge, Rehaak understood the lack of trees. Aelfric had cut and burned them to make charcoal for the forge and the bloomery. Black char pits—blotches of ash and soot—dotted the valley floor. The scars on the landscape must seem reasonable to Laakea since he grew up surrounded by it, but the ruin appalls me. Even Raamya and his Abrhaani loggers would never clear cut like this.

  The bloomery, a sooty black mound, stood like a malignancy near the center of the devastation. Charcoal lay in a heap near the forge house, but in the open areas, wildflowers and grasses had covered the ground in profusion. Near the forest’s edge, spotted deer stopped grazing and bounded away into the trees. Those flowers would never grow in the forest’s deep shade, nor would the grasses that fed the deer. Aelfric wounded Aarda, but it left a beautiful scar.

  Rehaak curbed his sense of moral superiority and kept silent, while Laakea picked his way across the clearing and scanned ahead. They edged toward the forge, birds fluttered from bush to bush, and squirrels darted from cover, startled by their presence, but nothing else moved.

  “I never noticed the clearing smells of smoke and soot. I lived here all my life and never noticed it,” Laakea said.

  Both forge and house had sod roofs to keep their interiors dry. The plants growing on the roofs had browned and dried out in the mid-summer heat but would green up again in the autumn rains. Wattle panels, saplings woven around slender uprights, filled the spaces between the posts on the forge. The open weave of the wattle panels and the smoke-hole in the roof’s center provided ventilation for the circular structure. The house’s wattle, sealed with mud and grass daub, kept the wind out and the warmth in.

  When they found no one at the forge or the house and no signs of recent occupancy, Laakea relaxed.

  “See, the worry wasn’t necessary,” Rehaak said.

  “There is plenty of reason to worry. Just because Pa left does not mean he won’t come back. When he does, it will mean trouble for both of us. For now, it means I have work to do, so stay out of my way.”

  “Well, if it’s all right with you, young sir, I shall see if your father left any food in the house. I swear I am as hungry as a bear in springtime. Where are those sheep you mentioned? Some roasted mutton would taste great right now. Oh, and is that a vegetable garden?” He pointed t
oward a weedy fenced-in area. “Lamb stew would taste just wonderful.” As an afterthought, Rehaak added. “Unless you need my help to prepare the forge.”

  “I don’t need help with the forge. The sheep are gone. Eat whatever you can find but stay nearby; I need help with the bellows once I start the fire. Pa left enough charcoal, but I must carry it into the forge house before I start. When you’re through stuffing yourself, could you draw water from the well and fill this slack tub to quench the blade once I have shaped it?”

  Rehaak tried to lighten the mood again. “Yes, sir!” He gave a smart salute and turned toward the house in the best imitation of a soldier he could muster. Laakea glowered at Rehaak’s attempted levity. Rehaak sensed the prospect of making weapons from the mysterious metal of the assassins’ knives without Aelfric’s guidance daunted Laakea.

  Rehaak had sensed the ebb and flow of Laakea’s emotions all morning. In moments, Laakea went from grim to joyous, and now he appeared worried, though perhaps not about himself. Rehaak kept silent as much out of respect for the youngster’s state of mind as for his own weariness.

  Weakened by his long convalescence, Rehaak had struggled to match Laakea’s pace throughout their journey. Rehaak swore Laakea had grown half a span taller since they met, and he filled out his tall frame with muscle. He was now a full span taller than Rehaak, who was taller than most Abrhaani. Laakea’s stamina outstripped even a healthy, well-conditioned Abrhaani.

  Rehaak, still weak from his injury, needed rest and food. His bandaged head itched like ants were crawling across his scalp, so he removed the sweat-soaked bandage and gently scratched the tender area beneath it. The breeze ruffled his hair for the first time in many days. He headed toward the house in search of food. Rehaak’s wound had developed a minor infection, and the hair on the triangular patch fell out before the skin healed.