Chapter 1

-It's the first chapter.

        

 

 

 

 

 

            The night was high over the Grand Forest of Nuir, and amongst the thicket, there moved a pack. As the calls of the foliage ceased to a whisper, and only the cicada’s hum droned on, they were ever in motion, slipping through the underbrush, with smoke behind them. It had been the Harmahnites again, as they had suspected, setting out once more on their crusades along the Western Shore, descending from the Desert Arne where they preached and practiced. The times had drove the Harmahnites mad, just as it had all the rest. From the eyes of Andrew Odin, a lad of sixteen, the world was just as it had always been. A life on the road, in constant fear of the Harmahnites was not a bad one, as far as he was concerned, and with his friends and family close at hand, he felt safe, secured. And yes, even Andrew would admit sleeping arrangements were not the finest, and his hygiene was suffering, but life to him was just as it should be.

            “Uncle Symeon,” Andrew called, as they settled out in a small, flat clearing. “Shall I set up our provisions?”
            “Of course, my boy,” Symeon de Vaux, a stocky man of forty-some odd years said, pulling back his hoods, and unbuckling it from his cloak. “Actually, Andrew, would you and Theodore fetch us some water from the brook? It’s not far, but I have a feeling we may be running low. Take the pail. Don’t be long. Your father and I will set up our provisions.”

            So Andrew and Theodore took the rusty old pail, and headed down to the notch in the brook, where there was an old worn down bridge, and an abundance of freshwater salmon. Theodore looked much like his father, Symeon, though a tad smaller, and slimmer of girth. His eyes were downcast, and he kept much to himself. He was fair with a sword, though Andrew had never learned, and he seemed far more like a brother to Andrew than a cousin. Andrew took the pail from Theodore, and knelt down at the bank to take their fill, whilst Theodore drew his sword and danced back and forth miming some fantastical battle. Not a word was passed between the two, and yet, nothing needed to be said.

            Once they returned, Symeon and Andrew’s Father, Jamison, divided it amongst the six of them. Andrew’s Mother, Claudia, and Theodore’s sister, Nora, were also present. “The Harmahnites did some real damage tonight,” Symeon reflected, gesturing over his shoulder towards the smoking ruins. The sky had purpled, and so the smoke seemed only a grey wisp, but it was enough to incite fear and much conversation amongst the band of travellers. There were half a dozen other families along with them, some of them connected by blood, others by location, and others simply by coincidence, but by some mad chance, they had found themselves together.

            “Let us not dwell on such happenings,” Jamison spoke softly, and Nora nodded along, drifting off in her father’s arms.

            “Jamison,” Symeon warned. “To ignore the problem is to feed it. Let us speak freely and not fear what may come of us. In any event, the Harmahnites are only afraid, as anyone these days are.”

            “Their devotion to that oaf is off-putting,” Jamison muttered, and Andrew averted his eyes. His Father’s total absence of faith in anything was unsettling to him. Andrew didn’t feel threatened or disturbed by Harmahn, though he was wary of the Harmahnites, and their flaming torches. “It drives them mad.”

            “So does all power drive men mad,” Symeon said.

            “And women,” Claudia put in at once, and Symeon nodded in silent recognition. “Oh, Jamison, I love you with all my heart, you know I do, and yet, I must take sides with Symeon on this debate. Harmahn was a fine man, and many of his followers are just in their actions. The Harmahnites are simply misguided.”

            “They’re murderers, Claudia,” Jamison scolded. “How can you stand for their butchery? They have slaughtered men and women alike, and taken children as slaves.”

            “Out of fear,” Claudia said, and she cast her sad eyes aside, letting Jamison sit and mull over his own vices.

            “These are dark times, I cannot deny,” Symeon said. “The onslaught of Harmahnites in the west has inspired a dozen riots in the east. Take a look at those barbarians we call kings now; Dragutin Provost, and the reemergence of the slime Dreggins. Malir and Ollom have faded into myth by now, and Osglad and Madjur are being overrun by the Constances. Even here in Nuir we are not safe. Cleodaeos himself is a fool!”

            “Cleodaeos is also misguided,” Claudia said, but this time, there was no murmur of agreement. Andrew and Theodore met eyes across the starlight, and shared a sly grin as the adults bickered amongst themselves. And so life had been this way for nearly all Andrew could remember, and he did not feel regret or remorse. He felt glad.

            The threat of the Harmahnites, who praised the old Venix called Harmahn, were not so bad as long as they were contained. It was when they embarked upon their crusades that the world felt grim. “Cleodaeos is indeed a fool, Claudia,” Jamison said, “and you’d be just as much to ignore that fact. I’d say our real problem starts with the Harmahnites. Bloody fools. Right, Andrew?”

            “Yes, Father,” Andrew, agreed bashfully, and Theodore gave him a disapproving look, though Symeon heeded him little attention.

            “Don’t force this on our son,” Claudia scoffed at his Father. “This is your trifle, and none other than that.”

            “Hardly,” Jamison sneered. “Those filthy swine were going to take our city and pillage it! They would’ve killed us too, and you know it.”

            Andrew tried to catch Theodore’s eyes again, but to no avail. The longhaired boy seemed disinterested in him now, and focused instead on his drink of water, throwing his head back. The conversation drew on for quite some time till the sky was no longer velvet, but pitch black and Symeon insisted they get some rest. Theodore, saying nothing, drew himself up and headed for the brook, and Andrew followed him, anxious to speak with the boy. As soon as they were out of earshot from the settlement, Theodore turned and spoke. “You shouldn’t let your Father control you like that.”

            “I have to,” Andrew said simply. “You know him.”

            “I know he is weak,” Theodore said, restlessly kicking bits of sand into the wayside. “Don’t let him make you weak too, Andrew.”

            “He’s not so bad,” Andrew said. “He’s scared, like all of us.”

            “His fear eats him alive, though,” Theodore said, taking a large stone and tossing it heavy-handedly into the marshes. “And it ebbs onto you.”

            Andrew shook his head and walked away, not wanting to hear Theodore anymore. He stormed up through the thicket, and emerged back into the camp, but he did not sleep. He propped himself up against a tree, and fiddled with the stone he kept in his pocket at all time: it was a river stone Claudia had given him when he was young, smooth and polished on all sides. It had no meaning at all, but Andrew kept it close all the time.

            “There will come a day when Father and I aren’t here to be with you,” Claudia had said, and when that day comes, I want you to remember me, no matter how you do.” She pressed the rock into his palm and it hadn’t left his person since then. He felt its warm surface against his cheek and then pressed it back into his pocket.

            On that night, like all nights, his demon came to him, washing over his body like a cold river, whispering to him, eating at him. He curled himself into a ball and waited for it to pass, to glide over him and disappear into the woods again like he knew it must. It spoke of his Father, of the Harmahnites in Nuir, of the barbaric kings all about Allugaro, and of another he had not heard before: a girl named Kaida. He let it all pass: the jeers, the mockery-it meant nothing to him.

            When he awoke, the night was still dark and so he made his way off to the stream and whiled away the time tossing stones into the water. In the distance, he heard feet slapping across the ground. He ignored them till they grew too close for his liking, so he descended back into the shadow of the trees and watched, as black masses slipped through the woods opposite the brook. At first he thought they were all cloaked, draped in shadows, and only then did it dawn on him that they were shadows, black and unnerving. Feeling his breath rattling, Andrew drew himself farther back into the darkness, and that was when the shadows stopped. Andrew thought they had eyes.

            He thought they might talk to him, say something, but they didn’t. A single shadow who was at the head of the bunch, turned and a chill touched upon the air, creeping up Andrew’s spine. His eyes glued shut. When he opened them, the shadows were gone, nothing but a single whisper afloat across the icy water. “Venix.”

            “Venix,” Andrew breathed, and he sat there, holding his knees to his chest for quite some time. “Venix.”

            At once, he felt something over his shoulder, and he spun on his heel, and saw nothing but the dark: the shadows. And yet, now it was only one, and it seemed to him, that it was not here to hurt him, but to see him with eyes it did not have. Andrew never looked away, not for fear, but out of curiosity. He was tempted to ask the shadow what it was, but instead he whispered into the void, “Who are you?”

            The dark said nothing, and Andrew felt a chill. For a second, he thought he heard just a slight change of the wind, a turn of the tails, and then it was gone. “You must speak,” the whisper had said. The shadow was not to be found again, and yet, Andrew felt it clinging to him long after it had faded into his dreams.

Author's Note

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