6

Her house stood before her. The hovel where she grew in, embedded in a hollow at the bottom of one of the tall cliffs from Riverland Hill. The wind threw ripples in the stream that ran beneath her, and playfully pulled from her white silken dress and hair. She wore no boots, feeling the rough of the bridge’s stone on her soles and toes. The grass on the other side of the bridge was fresh and hale with and dew sparkled all over. Lilies grew among blades of grass on the sides of the little dirt walkway that lead to the hovel’s entrance. It was neither day nor night, for everything was clear and colorful, but when she turned overhead the sky was black as an infinite void, yet there were no stars or moon. Veryanor saw a small string of smoke billowing from one of the chimneys, gray as the peaks behind.

That sight instilled a sudden calmness in her. She smiled, and timidly began to walk, but it slowly turned into a quick prance that sent pebbles and dust flying after each of her steps. A spade and an axe leaned on the wall by the door beside a pile of firewood, and she could spot a pair rusty shears half hidden in a small bush of wildweeds by the sty. She heard someone move on the other side of the door.

“Father?” She called and the steps stopped. “It’s me, Veryanor. I’m back.” Her father approached and stood still and silent, but the door remained closed. “Please, open the door. I’m back. I know it has been time, but I am finally back.” Not even an answer came, but she knew he was listening. “I have so much to tell you, so many things have happened…” She could feel everything shrink behind her. The village suddenly darkened, swallowed by the sky little by little. She knocked on the door. “I have traveled, just as I told you I would do when I grew up, remember? I finally did… And I saw the sea. It was beautiful, so blue. But it could turn to gold in a matter of minutes as the sun climbed down. It mirrored all the colors from the sky… Red and purple, orange and yellow. And at nights if felt as if all the stars had fallen and landed within reach…” a small, sad and nostalgic smile appeared on her lips, and her eyes became glassy. “I made many friends, too. There is Morra and Elden, Mordan and Ormo… K’aldrick and Rethe… You would like him. He has the same inquisitive mind as you, always fidgeting with something and willing to learn,” she gently laughed. “But I am back now. Father, please open the door…” She repeated. “Please…” Her voice began to break. “I have missed you so much! I…” She made a pause and sobbed, her eyes now blinded with tears. She knocked again, more desperate than before. She wanted to go in her home, knit hempen baskets by the fire, knead bread, read all the stories she grew up with, be by her father, hug him. Work with him, learn by his side, listen to all his japes and tales. But something inside her knew it was not possible, all of that was never to come back. Suddenly everything surrounding the cabin turned black. There were no mountains, no river, no bridge. The colorful piece of vale, full of lilies and grass, was gone, engulfed by a sea of darkness under a black dome that had no beginning or end. It was only her and the cabin what was left in the world. She took a deep breath and placed a hand on the smooth door’s surface. Burned, she thought, reduced to ashes and broken timbers. “I…” she continued, regaining herself. “I am sorry I am not who you expected me to become. That I had to grow into someone else. I’ve done things you would not approve, things that go against everything you raised me to believe and taught me.” She stopped a few heartbeats, her hand still on the warm door. But her legs gave up and fell to her knees. Suddenly tears began to flow again, and she leaned her brow on the door. “Would you still love me?” she cried “If you still lived, would I still be your daughter!?” Veryanor then heard the fire’s crackling from the other side and the smell of smoke began to rise. Cries of people came from everywhere around as well as the sound of hooves galloping and the haunting sound of steel cutting through flesh. Veryanor heard women crying for help, the screams of children. But there was nothing around but darkness. She jumped to her feet, her hands tight into fists. “I’m sorry I could not help you!” She exclaimed as she took a few steps back. The cabin was aflame, the heat unbearable. The flames grew larger and wider, extending over the black ground. Veryanor turned to run, but her legs were heavy and clumsy. Her heart beat as the flames reached her. Her dress caught flame, then her hair. Then everything was fire. She yelled as the water in her boiled, and her lungs burned.

Then everything was darkness once more, and she could breathe. She took in all the air her body allowed. She was covered in a mass of pelts and coats, and even though she was drenched in sweat she trembled with cold. Outside a faint thunder rumbled in the distance accompanied. A dream, she thought. It was just a dream. She pressed her teary eyes. Looking around the shapes began to make more sense. To her side barrels and sacks were stacked on each other, and a soft patter on the wagon’s canvas filled the silence that a thunder had left behind.

She tried to move to a more sitting-like position. Her whole body shook with pain and fell again, tightening her jaw and cursing under her teeth. She removed the bulge of pelts to discover someone had stripped her from her armor and clothes. A pungent smell made her nose wrinkle. Blood-stained bandages covered her torso as well as one of her thighs. She probed over the bandages and grimaced.

The wagon leaned and creaked as someone climbed on. She quickly covered her naked body with the pelts. The light that came in as the flaps were open was dim and cold but bright enough to make Veryanor’s eyes shy to it.

“You’re awake!” It took a few seconds for Veryanor to recognize the dark shape as Rethe. “Are you feeling well? Do you need anything?”

“Water,” she whispered with effort.

Rethe jumped off the wagon and she heard his steps disappear. It took only a few minutes for him to come back with a hefty skin of water. She took it and drank viciously, water spilling down her chin and damping the bandages on her chest until the skin emptied. When done she dried her mouth with the back of her hand.

“How long did I sleep?” She asked, handing Rethe the skin.

“Since the battle,” He said, shyly. “How are you feeling?”

“My whole body hurts.”

“You would not be human if it didn’t. Be thankful you were not conscious when we had to put your shoulder back in place.”

“My shoulder…” She repeated remembering the battle, Aldemront fighting, her marching towards him, the spear-thrust that threw her off Alynör, the knight in dark armor, Galdwein cutting through, the screams of pain. And blood. A lot of blood. She remained silent for a moment. Rethe did not speak as well, as if not sure what were the right words. Veryanor’s heart pounded fast and she held the pelts tight for a quick second. “H… how is everyone?” She finally asked.

Rethe sat cross-legged beside her and stared into empty space. Any time he did not want to touch a subject he would stammer and avoid her stare.

When they she met Rethe he was a score and eight. Tall and thinner, with a freckled face that resembled a youngling’s more than a man’s. Now, with a score of years on him, his shoulders had broadened, his jaw had squared and the shade of a beard began to appear. But even still, in occasions, he behaved as if he still were only half a score. Later on Veryanor grew to know that all men could be as dumb as newborn cattle.

Finally the young mercenary opened his mouth. Just a little wheeze came and turned into a scoff with a weak smile. “Compared to you?”

Veryanor glowered at him. “Fine, then.”

She pushed herself up with her right arm, and with her left hand she held the pelts covering her breasts in place. Her left shoulder throbbed and felt numb at the same time. She clenched her teeth and cursed as her leg began to boil. “Hand me my shirt and trousers.”

“Wait!” Rethe urged, and pushed her down gently by the shoulder. “You should not move. The wound will open.”

Veryanor shook his hand off. “I don’t care.” She said with words cold as corpse.

“But I do! You should rest!”

“Rest?” Her teeth remain clenched and her lips twitched. “That’s what I’ve been doing! And Ellth knows for how long! I do not know a thing in this bloody moment, Rethe! And the only thing I ask you come up with a cursed jape?” She scoffed and shook her head mockingly. “If you will not tell me anything I can’t lay still and rest. Hand me my shirt and trousers, Rethe.”

Rethe did not say a thing. The wind blew and flapped the wagon’s canvas. Veryanor could hear the tree’s rustle and the faint rattle of a drizzle in its first moments.

“I’m sorry.” Rethe said. Veryanor had never heard a tone like this in his voice. “It’s been three days. We lost greater part of the company in battle, and Ormo’s battalion deserted draining us even more... The numbers are not exact but we cannot be more than a hundred and fifty.”

Veryanor could not find the words. She swallowed.

“Only a hundred and fifty, out of five hundred?” Her heart raced, her stomach turned. Many of these men and women were all strangers to her. Faces she would not recognize in a pile of corpses. Unknown faces… But at the same time, she had fought along them. This company was Mordan’s feat, what he created and grew himself. This was important to him, to her. This was her home, what had saved her after she lost all she ever had. She strove to hold the impulse of retching. She wanted to cry, but tears could not come. What should she feel for them? For all these strangers that had been her family? “Wh—where are we now?”

Rethe sighed. “Down the Eastmark road, at the Four Wind crossing. We’re heading back to Greatkeep.”

“To Greatkeep?” She was reluctant to believe what Rethe just said. “After all what happened, Mordan is still willing to continue?”

“This is not Mordan’s doing. He… eh… It’s K’aldrick’s. K’aldrick is leading the march.”

“And what does Mordan think?” She exclaimed. Rethe did not answer. Something in his eyes told Veryanor there was something he had not shared. “Rethe, is Mordan well?”

“He… he is alive.”

“Hand me my clothes, Rethe. I hurt no more.”

The young mercenary hesitantly took Veryanor’s garments that lay beside some barrels and placed them to her side. Done that he went out the wagon for her to put them on. The task was not easy, for she had lied to begin with. Her left shoulder was stiff as a rock and pangs of pain snaked through her when she tried to rise her arm and slid into her shirt. Once done she moved to her trousers only to find out it was not so different.

Having been done she went out. The dim light blinded her at first until her eyes got used to it. Rethe waited without and offered his help for Veryanor to ease herself down the wagon. The pain was strong, but she discovered her leg would hold her weight just fine. She only had to endure the burning sensation, and hide the pain as she walked. The sky was covered in clouds and a light rain drifted down slow as sleet, blown by a chill wind.

“Take me where Mordan.” She said.

She limped leaning on Rethe’s shoulder. The camp was bleakly set and the meager soldiers were scattered here and about, some gathered in small groups around the warm ashes of bonfires, huddled in their capes to make for the lack of tents, gnawing on bones of what seemed to be last night’s super. Others were huddled on the ground or leaned on trees trying to gather what sleep they could before retaking the long march south. Veryanor saw no colors of Aldermont, nor colors of Manthyr, Orstenshore or Ashtenford. Only starving men with a downcast and empty glare in their eyes. This is what remains, Veryanor thought heartbroken. A broken company made from broken men. “Where are Aldermont’s men?”

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Rethe only had a sigh for answer.

The covered wagon was placed on the bottom of a slant of small hill with two dray mules pasturing beside. They rose their heads as Verya and Rethe got closer, but resumed their eating once they decided the mercenaries were not a threat.

Rethe got a hold of Veryanor’s wrist as she was about to climb in the wagon. “It is… bad.” He said. “I just wanted to let you know before…” He did not finish.

Veryanor nodded and he let go.

There was a pungent smell of rancid blood mixed with sweat. A single oil lamp flickered above Mordan, who was laying along the cart. Morra sat on her knees beside him. He dipped a rag in a wooden bowl filled with watter and washed Mordan’s torso with tender dabs. Her expression that of a mother’s taking care of a long-sick child that was not expected to survive. It was was a sorrowful countenance, but it was a sorrow that had been settled, and now awaited. The sweat on her shoulders, uncovered by a sleeveless woolen jerkin, shone palely under the quivering light.

“M… Mordan?” Veryanor called in disbelief.

“No use, child.” Morra said, dipping the rag in a bowl and then wringing it. “I don’t think he can hear.”

Veryanor’s stomach heaved. Mordan’s face was covered in bandages darkened with blood. His only eye, peeping from an opening, was too welted and swollen to keep open. Each of his breaths was a painful. Morra had taken the bandages off to clean him, revealing a torso that was a painting of cuts and bruises. Only his right arm and leg were covered, or what was left of them. Mordan’s right arm ended in a stump beneath the elbow, and his right leg had been hacked above the knee, the cloths with a damp, crimson spot at the end. He seemed so frail and thin, and vulnerable. Were it not for him breathing there would be no manner to discern if he still lived.

Veryanor could not see more, and her stomach could not endure much either. She stormed out the cart with a tight jaw holding every sob as she did not want to wail in front of everyone. She limped past Rethe who called something and began to run after her, but decided against it almost instantly. The Arrion woods closed around her, where she hoped she could hide, and never to be found.

She huddled in the hollow of a rocky outcrop she found under the tangled roots of an old willow as the night crept in. The stone was covered in moss, cold and moist against her.

She tried to remember when the last time she cried. She had done it a many times some time ago, as she sparred and trained with Ellden and K’aldrick, when he spanked her with their makeshift wooden swords. Tears welled in her eyes every day for months as her hands and arms filled with bruises. “Ah, the lady’s ready to cry.” K’aldrick would stop and mock out loud for all to hear. “Let us stop, shall we? Let us give the lady some time to cry. We are not as bad a as death. Death gives no one time to cry.” Laughter rose from the group of men around. But she knew those were kindhearted jests, intended harden her, ripen her. But this was a different kind of pain. Deeper, sharper. More dangerous; loss and the uncertainty that comes with it. And there was no training she could go through to prepare herself for such a pain.

Another father of her was dying, and there was nothing she could do to change that. And even if Mordan lived what life could await him? Mordan Stoneboar, the broken boar of stone, a crippled captain for a crippled army. No leg, no sword hand. A part of Veryanor wished for him to never wake, to never see what had become of him, to never see what had become of his men. Her eyes began to tear and she began to sob.

A storm of emotions swirled within her and many memories came. Her father in her deathbed, as frail as Mordan. The night her house was burned down with him inside. Riverland Hill turned to charred timbers and tumbled walls. Althon, her childhood friend, dropping dead in front of her with a crossbow bolt jutting from the back of his throat. The Soldier, the very first man she had ever killed, who tried to steal her maidenhood in the alley, his rank breath and crooked teeth, his cold touch, the warm blood gushing out from him as she sunk the dagger under his ribs. The streets strewn with corpses next morning, men children and women. The only men who lived wailed for their dead, the women walked with empty stares and blood between their legs.

Another father of hers was dying, and there was nothing she could do to change that. And even if Mordan lived what life could await him? Mordan Stoneboar, the broken boar of stone, a crippled captain for a crippled army. No leg, no sword hand. A part of Veryanor wished for him to never wake, for him to never see what had become of him, to never see what had become of his men. She hugged her knees and rested her forehead on them. Her eyes began to tear and she began to sob. Soon those sobbing became wails that echoed in the forest until sleep took over head.

She covered herself with her cape, hugged her knees and rested her forehead on them. Soon the forest echoed with her cries until sleep took over her.

She woke up to being naked, in the same spot where she had fallen asleep. Her pale skin glowed covered in a ghostly aura, and her hair flowed as a black vapor. Overhead the blue clouds stirred and drifted violently, as if pulled by a storm gathering somewhere far beyond the sea. All the colors seemed faded and dull, as if the forest had been engulfed by a false night and a ghastly mist that hid everything past a dozen feet.

Strangely, Veryanor felt at ease and safe. Her leg felt as if healed, and when she rose her arm she found her shoulder moved smoothly, and her arm was light as if she blended with the wind, almost as if her soul and body were separate from one another, and she were just seeing what someone else did from behind their eyes.

It was then when she noted the dark lines running over her naked breasts and falling in dark droplets on the forest’s ground. It took her not long to understand where the blood came from. She covered herself with the crook of an arm and with the other hand she held her cheek. Blood gushed between her fingers, down her arm. Her scar was bleeding.

Veryanor examined her bloodstained palm, confused and in wonder alike.

Ever since Veryanor was a child, that scar had always troubled her. It slashed from eyebrow’s edge across her cheek and below the chin. She had never known where how she got it. As far as she knew she was born with it. A gift from her mother, other than just the ring. The scar was part of her. It had even become a habit to prod it every time something troubled her, as the numb sensation of her finger against the papery skin was distracting enough. She later knew that no one but her could see it, yet it was there. When trying to explain Rodd, he acted as if nothing happened, it was just a child’s folly. But for Veryanor it was there, it was real. It felt real. And now it bled. And more strangely, did not hurt.

She turned and dim in the mist a strange, calm and cold light made its way through. Veryanor drew closer to discover it was the same outcrop with the hollow she had slept in, scrawled with runes. Thousands of strings of runes were carved on the dark rock, glowing with a turquoise light, throbbing as if they had a mind of their own. At first glance they seemed so alien, but the more Veryanor looked at those runes the more she felt attracted. For a moment she thought she could understand their hidden meaning. They were not only carved on the stone, but on the willow’s roots as well, and climbed all their way to the top. Further she then saw many more small outcrops trusting out of the underbrush, and all written with same glowing runes. There was something beautiful and mysterious in that sight. And frightening.

Then something was to be heard, dim, distant. Veryanor sharpened her hearing and she understood that those were voices, all together in a faint chant that echoed through the trees, growing ever so louder. Hundreds of voices together drawing nearer.

The first shape appeared as a shadow in the distance, then another. And in less than a few heartbeats the forest was crowded by hundreds of people, all marching slow and sullen, bent by an unseen weight. Men, women and children naked and starved to the bone. No one seemed to pay Veryanor any mind. They sang in a language unknown to her, hoarse to the ear and fragmented like broken glass. But she somehow could understated the meaning of those words. The dirge was slow and sorrowful, full of pain and suffering that felt like needles to the heart.

Ek k'gath za verezz-ess gath

Ek k'gath krazzen dasth za vorza gath azzt

Ek kathn gath ezz sokath hethess krethen

Dasth botken k'thest Krazith kath Ásthoren

Veryanor approached an old man with pox marks.

“Where are you all going?” Veryanor asked. The man did not answer. Instead he man rose his head. Half his jaw was gone, his tongue lolled and drooled from inside the wound. Veryanor backed in surprise with a gasp. The old man bowed his head and kept going. What in the name of Ellth is this? She thought and looked around. There were men with missing limbs, women bent down with blood running down their thighs, others flayed, walking on skinned soles. All suffered some injure, famine or rot, and as they came each was worse and more grotesque than the last. But the chant would not stop.

Veryanor shied back, disgusted, but more in awe than scared. Something on the ground made her trip. She turned to see it was a boy, no more than six or seven, huddled with his back against an old oak’s bole. He hugged his knees and his skin torn and ragged, and of his hair only a few silky locks remained, for his scalp was bare of skin in many parts. Few of his toes were missing, leaving behind fresh stumps where the bone showed. Unlike the rest, he did not sing, but cried. Veryanor knelt slowly, unsure of what to say or do.

The child looked at her with begging eyes, or maybe fear. Veryanor could not tell.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you,” Veryanor said.

The boy said nothing for a few seconds, and just as Veryanor was to speak again, the boy said, “Afraid… I am afraid… They come. Pain. I hurt…”

Veryanor was surprised and also confused. The boy spoke in the same language the dirge was sung.

“I… I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Who is coming? What happened to you?”

“I need to go,” the boy said as if insisting. He stood, revealing a bloody hole where his sex should have been. An intense smell suddenly rose. Veryanor tried to back away but the child grabbed her from the wrist and with the other hand pointed northeastwards. “I need to go before they come. But I don’t know.” He was getting impatient and kept pointing excitedly. “Can you take me? They come. Fast. Take me.”

“I don’t understand what you say.” She tried to explain, desperate. The boy pulled from her arm, as if urging her to follow.

“They come. I’ll show you, come.”

He turned quick and flung into the underbrush. Veryanor called after him, but he did not stop. Not knowing what else to do, she followed.

Veryanor moved fast through the woods, twigs and leaves scraping her bare skin, yet she did not feel any pain. The boy walked in front of her as if his feet were uninjured.

“Were are you taking me?” she yelled.

“They come, hurry.” It was the child’s sole response over his shoulder.

It seemed to Veryanor as if they had marched for hours, but there was no way to know how much time had passed for the skies remained covered in clouds. They arrived to the Truvyan and walked north along the banks until they found a small ford which they crossed. Afterwards the ground began to gently slope upwards, and the trees began to grow more separate to each other. At length they arrived to the skirts of the Arrion Mountains. They loomed, jagged and menacing, dark against the ghastly sky. The boy began to climb without even sparing Veryanor a glance or a word.

Then she climbed. The stone was rough against her fingers when steady, soft and brittle and treacherous at parts. When she turned down she saw the world dwindle, and when she turned up the peak seemed as if it would never arrive. The boy was a little spider, climbing fast with trails of dirt falling wherever he clung to. Soon he would disappear if she did not hurry. She did not feel tired, and her muscles kept working. She came to a narrow gorge and jumped across. She almost lost her grip when landing, and then kept on going. Soon she saw the summit, and the boy climbing up the ledge.

When she pulled herself up, the world spread around her. The Arrion woods was a dark sea, the mountains cutting through it, south to north and bending to the west far in the distance as if it were the tail of a giant coiled dragon sleeping on a bed of grass.

But everything else was diminished by what lay farther in all directions. The boy pointed and kept saying “They come. I need to go. Fast”

For a second Veryanor had lost hear breath in awe.

“You want to go there?” She asked, even though she knew the answer already.

The clouds opened in many places as small glades in the skies. But from them swirls of cyan and jade fire spiraled down in straight, long cylinders. The same fire could be seen at the bottom where they touched the earth. They were far away, some could be seen in the distance, behind the mountains in the south, to the east, west and north. Some were a just small green lines that fell somewhere beyond the sea. The boy pointed to the one in the south, one of the biggest and closest. But as close as it seemed to be, where ever it fell was on the other side of the sea. Veryanor could only picture a faint image of how big each of those swirls truly was. She could feel a slow hum coming from it, and reverberating inside of her in a way that made her feel uneasy and scared.

“I must go. You can take me. I must.” The boy said.

“I…” she tried to say but could not take her glance off the spiral of green fire. “I…” everything began to fade, and she could hear the boy yelling at her, desperate, and she could not see him anymore. Only a blur, an amalgam of shapes remained. Then everything began to clear, and the fuzzy shapes detached from one other and gradually sharpened. It was no swirls what appeared, or the dark skies stirred with clouds or a forest enveloped in mists. But the tree’s canopy, and the colors of the world. And she felt the rain and the cold wind once more. Dizzy, Veryanor took a hand to her scar. It was there, but it was the same scar she knew. There was no blood. Her leg bothered, and her shoulder was stiff as a stone.

Another dream… She thought as the memory slowly shied to the very back of her mind and took a deep breath.

“Veryanor!” Someone called and she heard the greenery of the forest rattle draw near. “VERYANOR!”

“I’m here, Rethe!” Veryanor answered, getting out of the outcrop’s hollow. When she got on her feet her legs felt as if they would give in. When was the last time she had eaten, anyway?

Rethe almost tripped when he jumped from the outcrop’s edge and landed beside Veryanor. “By Ellth!”

Veryanor took a step back and raised an eyebrow.

“Is everything well?”

“You must come. We are leaving, we are being followed. By Ellth’s Curse!”