WHAT BEGAN WITH A CRASH, a blister of pain and truth hidden behind the need for revelation.
My eyes awoke through haze to find myself toppled over in the back of a carriage. Sprawled onto my stomach with splintered and crumbled wood dusted over the side of my face. From what I could remember of this event, I was scared yet too young to understand the full complexity of what was happening. Only able to repeat in flashes.
Pushing open the broken dark oak door, it faltered off its hinges, spattering onto the cold sheets of ashy snow. Pulling myself from the wreck, feeling the cold creep up my fingers and slither into my body. All I could hear were the trotting of horses and swords screeching against one another, paining my ears with their unpredictable shocks. Bodies heaved left and right in pools of blood which melted the snow in patches. Everything fell into a blur and then something emerged from the woods beyond.
Overhead of me appeared a dark winged crow. Its raspy call echoed in my mind as I watched it glide over to a shadowed figure in a hooded coat. Its arm was up, sturdy and ready to accept the crow’s landing. The sword held at its side, serrated and dripping with the blood of those fallen at its feet. As it turned revealing its face from under the torn pointed hood, I saw that light. The cold bright shine in its eyes.
“Run to the trees! I will find you!” A voice echoed from somewhere in the night. It trembled to me and the next thing I could remember was charging into the darkness of the woods. The moonlight shining off the blankets of the frozen ground as I hurried in no real direction.
I was lost.
Running until exhaustion, my childhood legs grew weak and began to give out beneath. They faltered under me, my knees pressed into the burning snow and the dress I had worn soaked up in water. I couldn’t remember why it was a dress I wore. Perhaps I was of noble descent, that I was the daughter of a king or an official. What I did know as of now was that I was on my own.
For a long time it remained that way. From this point on, everything that I knew previously only appeared in dreams of forgotten memories and everything after were only so distant enough for little concern.
The wind was consuming me. It was picking up at speeds that would send the ice splintering towards my eyes, causing a burn that would make me cover them with my coat. It became so strong that I could almost feel myself lifting off my feet, as if it had restricted me from continuing in the direction I was going.
Pushing back on me, I struggled and then I reached the peak. Almost slipping as the ice cracked off the edge of the cliff, I stared down into the voiding canyon. I had reached the edge of the woods and almost to certain death. This wind had warned me. I was going in the wrong direction and if it had not pushed back on me, I would have surely fallen to my doom.
The wondrous, unnatural breeze continued as I moved in the opposite direction. Its fury calmed like it knew now I was going the right way. Whistling in my ears as if speaking to me but I couldn’t understand its language. Yet.
Night seemed to never end. It felt like I was trudging through the snow for days. Being so young, as I was, it was like a whole life was this torment of being completely alone. Then soon I was not so alone.
In the distance, through the winter gaunt trees which traveled for miles, a bellowing howl sounded through. I sauntered towards a small clearing in the woods. A circular area as if it was carved out for a purpose, but it was as natural as it could be with the tall pine trees surrounding and watching whatever came their way.
I reached a low edge of rock and dirt where the snow had sunken over the side as my black boots lined with some kind of fur dangled on its precipice. Seeing in the middle of this clearing, my eyes were so tired, barely able to make out anything of real character. Although I could hardly discern it from the rest of the environment, even in my blurred vision, I could point out the elegant beauty of a deer as it trotted through the wavy sheets of snow.
Trying to get closer to the creature, the side of the rocky edge gave way and I fell down the hill. Sliding along the sharpened siding, the dress I wore tore in all different places. By the time I reached the bottom, all that I had worn was in tatters and provided no amount of warmth anymore.
In an unending shiver, I struggled to get up to my feet. Feeling the wind blow painfully against the newly opened wounds that dripped blood down my legs. My feet trudged through the snow, barely able to lift them out as it got deeper and deeper as I pushed towards the deer.
The howling returned. Echoing, it turned into an amalgam of quick groggy growls.
Over a hill on the opposite side of the clearing, five large shadowy beasts leapt over the edge with little effort. They tore across the clearing as if it was magic or maybe it was my tiredness that made it seem so.
Soon enough, the deer was surrounded, and I had to hide from these beasts. I ducked down into the snow. It felt like I was lying on fire, but I had to stay silent in fear of death. There was whimpering and howling until there was silence.
Finally looking up, I could see the beasts in a circle, tearing apart the skin and flesh of the once beautiful deer. Their darkness was consuming its light.
One of the beasts picked his head up and wandered away from the rest. He sniffed along the floor and studied around the edges of the clearing. This beast was much larger than the others. His black fur blended in with the dark forest that surrounded, making him hardly discernible to the eye. His large teeth were pronounced and blood caked.
My heart was beating faster than my breath could keep up with. My sharp cuts and grazes burned in the snow as the blood soaked deeper. It was then that the beast turned in my direction. I held a tight grasp around my mouth hoping it would stop him from finding me. The beast was smart. He snarled and knew I was there.
He trotted towards me, stopping just a few feet away. I lifted from my stomach onto my feet, but the beast came so close he had startled me back onto the floor. His growling mouth dripped with saliva and fresh blood, smelling of rot and heaving great breathes of warm steam. He followed me, marking the smallest movements I made with his shined black eyes. In them, I could see myself mirrored, sitting back on the snow and vulnerable to his doubtful mercy. I knew then that I had escaped certain death just to meet it again.
Just after, that same cool and furious wind returned which glided over my shoulders into the beast. It appeared to have irritated the large creature greatly as he turned away, shaking off whatever had just taken over him.
The beast turned his hulking body towards me, and I saw his teeth retract back into his mouth and his eyes calm from frenzy. He whimpered like a dog would please its owner and ran away from me, bounding towards the group and furiously growling them off as they cowered away from the great strength and power he had held over them. He was their leader, stopping their feast on the mangled corpse as soon as his presence of dominance was made.
The beast lifted the deer by the throat into his dagger-filled mouth and dragged the corpse across the clearing to me. Dropping it in front of me, pushing the bloody mess of flesh with his inky snout closer, almost touching against my boots. The beast backed away, licking over its lips and waited for my approval.
Something so beautiful, torn apart and revealed what is actually grotesque inside. My stomach tossed and turned at this wonderfully horrific sight.
The beast whimpered and sat down in the snow waiting for some answer I could not give. This was a very confusing circumstance for me. I was only a few years along and witnessed so much death and carnage in a short period of time. All I knew as of then was that I was starving, and that maybe I was not alone after all.
The natural world offered so much and also so little in equal manner. Time became nothing but fleeting passes of night and day. I lived amongst the animals, and they had become my friends. The trees, rocks, the structures of the woods had become my new home. My only comfort for the longest time.
My body changed, growing but not knowing by how much. I shaped into a body that made it easier to maneuver my environment with. I studied each creature, prey and predator alike as they went about their days. Every one of them that I had come across treated me as if I was an old friend, and I never truly questioned the reasons why. They taught me how to survive. How to live like they did. It was not always so easy as they had made it seem. I struggled in hell for a long time.
I couldn’t stomach killing any one of them. Even when the packs would hunt and feast on other creatures, I adapted to feeding only on the foliage which was any source of berries or nuts. When the time came, I took to thievery from carts that would travel by. They were scarce, those merchants traveling somewhere unknown to me. Stealing assorted fruits, vegetables, baked wares that smelled better than anything that had been sourced to me in the wild. I thought at times to stay in the cart and see where these merchants were going. Maybe I could find my real family. Find out what really happened to me. Then I would look into the eyes of these creatures I had met. I knew I was comfortable with them and them me.
We moved as one. A pack across the land. They cuddled me at night and kept me warm. Sleeping in caves and once the snow had melted and the air warmed, in those seasons we slept under the dark trees. Occasionally, I would see the twinkling waves of stars in an open clearing, but it was rare during those warmer days.
These beasts were no beasts to me. Not anymore. They were my friends. My family. Although, like everything else around me, they would eventually die.
Arrows rained from above, and all I had come to know was once again gone in the blink of an eye. Warring men scrambled about, aiming out the weapons they had slaughtered my friends with at me.
In the black void eyes of my friend, I could see my face and hands covered in their blood.
“Little one, what are you doing out here alone? It is dangerous among these parts with these roving malignant creatures.”
I assumed that it was one of the men who had asked this question. I never actually got a studious look at their faces to know. I was feral, you see. An anger fueled within me and that all familiar wind returned to guide me once again.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
From this, new blood had been branded onto my hands as the vision of red faded. A mix of bodies were laid at my feet. My friends, and these novel beasts that took them from me.
I gathered the bodies and all that they had carried. Using their weapons and supplies, I trained with the bows and axes, gaining an unnatural affinity for each. My friends who had kept me warm would be with me forever. I fashioned what I needed into a black cloak and hood to blend into the night and stay hidden from those who may hunt me. Building my strength, I wanted to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen again to me or anyone.
Soon enough, it had occurred again.
Hearing the screams of men and the familiar clashing of swords, I thought at first I was dreaming. The carriage flipped over and the phantom with the cold eyes returned to me. I have seen its face every night since.
What was happening right then was not my nightmare, however, for it was someone else’s.
On a winding dirt path, a dark blue carriage embellished in gold trim had been stopped. Men in silver armor with the same colors of the carriage lay on the dry ground. Most dead, others injured beyond saving. Their attackers, most still alive, wandered about picking off the last of the armored guards. Wearing rough leather armor, their style and weapons showed them to be more vulnerable to be cut down but better suited for the environment they were in.
“Let’s see what we got here!” A bandit with a scruffy monstrous beard called out as he opened up the carriage door.
I watched as he pulled out a radiant woman who looked older than me. Her body was more defined than mine at the time. Her silvery light hair could resemble that of a shiny crystal. She screamed and fought in the man's arms as he took her with ease, gripping her body against his own.
“Unhand me you vagrants!” the woman shouted painfully.
“Vagrants?” the bandit chuckled. “We are but humble travelers searching for our dues!”
As the bandit tossed her down into the dirt, I snuck up closer behind a fallen tree, keeping low to the floor and readying my bow.
He climbed back into the cart once more and spoke snidely. “Ooo, what’s this we got here?” He then laughed, pulling out from the cart in his arms a small girl.
“Let me go!” the child’s young voice shouted proudly.
The little girl’s hair was the same extraordinary color of the woman’s and resembled her complexion greatly. A mother and daughter perhaps, as I thought.
“Put her down!” the mother demanded with an angered quiver and charged to defend the child.
Another bandit with a pointed nose and a bald head back handed the mother across her face. “Clamp it! You say somethin’ else, and I'll cut your tongue and feed it to the girl for suppah.”
The bandit’s hands who held the little girl were so monstrous that he could wrap his fingers fully around her waist. As he stared at her with a creepy smile straight on I could hear her struggle to get loose from his clutch. “This one’s kinda cute. Like a little doll.” He laughed uproariously.
The girl struggled and with great courage began smacking her small hands against the towering man’s leathered chest. Forming fists, she then resorted to punching and kicking with furious rage.
The girl was tossed through the air toward her mother who just barely caught her. They sat there in the dirt, whimpering and speaking to each other in whispers.
The wide handed bandit climbed back into the carriage again and began throwing stuff over his shoulder onto the dirt road. The others walked around the carriage inspecting its outer design and make. The bald one looked intently at a large gold symbol carved into the side panel.
Through a gargled laugh he announced, “Looks like we came upon something special ‘ere boys. This carriage is coming from the great Kingdom of Illania.”
“How you know that?” another bandit asked.
“The symbol, you clod. It’s got that stupid flowah thing right there in it. You know, the one on the bannahs.”
“And look what I got.” The one searching through had stepped out from the back once again holding what looked like a silver encrusted box. “Looks expensive.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Give it ‘ere,” the bald bandit demanded, waving his hand for the box.
“No, it's mine. I found it. Get your own!”
“Give it to me you log head!”
They struggled with the box, tugging at it between them like children would a toy. Screaming and struggling to get better grips over the other, the brawnier one had the greater strength, but the bald one had tenacity and a stubbornness to not give in.
The child curled into her mother as her head was patted softly with warm intention. Such care did not deserve any of this. Not this fate.
“Alright! Buggah off, bastard!” The bald bandit gave into his annoyance and dropped his grip on the box.
“That’s what I thought. What’s this symbol?”
“It’s probably the same symbol on the side of the cart, dunce. If you’d let me look at it, we could probably figure it out, you nob!”
“Stop calling me names!”
“Oi!” Another bandit from the opposite side of the cart lifted up a leather bag over his head. “Look at this. It's a royal sigil.”
“A royal sigil, aye. Looks like we’ve come by some treasure after all boys. Wondah what they’d be worth for a just-about-untouched return?”
Walking closer to the mother who clutched the girl into her body as close as she could, the bald-headed bandit took out a large rigid blade from his waist. He yanked on the woman’s ankle, but the last sound from him were of those revolting gargled laughs as my arrow pierced his left eye socket. Falling down like a rock in water.
As the other’s faces dropped in shock, I scurried around to another vantage point and got even with the larger bandit holding the silver box. Releasing my arrow, it lodged into his throat and he immediately dropped the box to hold his neck as the blood seeped from the open hole. He slid down the side of the carriage and onto the floor. The other bandit holding the leather bag jumped from the carriage and hid behind it. Only way I could get to him was by moving closer.
“Show yourself, phantom coward!” he yelled in desperation. “You go see!”
Calling me a coward when he sent another in his place. This one looked scared beyond comparison to the others. His hair sat like a patch of grass on the top of his head. Younger in age and complexion. Something was off about him. As if he didn’t want to be here.
I aimed for his leg, firing the arrow just above his knee. He fell screaming in agony that could be heard for miles, but these woods went on for miles more and people were a rare sight in all my time here. No one would come and they would not be saved.
Climbing over and around nature's obstacles, I made it to a tree just before the dirt path. The young man still screaming and whimpering had masked my movement.
“I’ve had enough!” the final bandit screamed before running out from behind the carriage. “Fight me to my face like a man!”
His yelling, toppled by the young one’s snivels, allowed me to sneak up behind him.
My bow was smooth, stained black from coal I had found in a cave to make it less noticeable in the dark. Running partly on the upper limb was a fashioned blade made from bone with a serrated edge. I rarely used it up until then.
In one swift motion, as the final standing bandit turned, I slashed the blade across his throat. Slicing as easily as a scythe would cut wheat. Parting a reddened horizon across his neck that let blood flow down his body onto the young bandit who laid beneath him. Toppling over him, the young bandit’s whimpering had taken a heavy turn as excessive breaths came billowing out as he stared at one’s life drifting away over his immovable body.
Looking out from under my hood I could see the mother coddling her daughter, keeping her closer than ever. I stepped over the corpse of the bald, eye impaled bandit, dipping my boot in the blood and dragging it along the dirt path toward them. Approaching, I could feel their tense state and any unwarranted movement could prove I was just as much a threat to them as these brigands were.
As I came closer, I revealed my hand from beneath my cloak, lifting it up in a calming manner. They shuttered and I could see tears pooling in the eyes of the little girl, impending on her rosy-red cheeks. Both of their eyes were as blue as the sky and an enraptured beauty I could never hope to explain. I felt as if I was in the presence of angels, that I had saved ethereal beings from a fate that I was almost taken by.
Pulling my hood back, I revealed to them my face so I could get a better look at theirs. Just then, I noticed something as my hood was tucked back, that the mother stared at me strangely. As if she had seen a specter or some creature she had never come by before.
“You are a child,” she spoke with a soft, soothing voice. “How is it that you could have done all of that?”
I was unsure of how to respond. At this point, I didn’t know the last time I spoke a word to another person. In truth, I avoided contact as the animals provided more comfort, but I could not speak their language either. If there is no one to speak to, why have the need to speak at all?
The young man continued his cries for help. I did grow annoyed, turning and walking back over to him, I kicked him across the face which halted his incessant shrieks.
The mother and child rose from the floor in their colorful finery. The mother wore a long purple cloak over the top of a dark blue trench coat. Beneath that I could see sticking out from the bottom was a long blue dress that covered over her feet and had extra room to drag behind as she walked. Along the ends were diamonds intricately embroidered that rose up underneath the coat. The child wore a large white fur coat and a simple white dress that fluffed at the bottom and was detailed with embroidered purple gem flowers all over her torso. Their clothing was elegant as the one I once wore. The one that was long lost.
“Thank you for saving us,” the mother said.
My gaze was averted to the carriage, and I quickly walked over to study it.
“Are you out here alone? Where are your parents?”
I still couldn’t answer her. I wasn’t even sure what she was saying exactly. The words were spoken so fast. I cannot describe how it felt to not understand language. I was scared to say the wrong thing back. It had been too long to understand completely what I could possibly be saying.
“Do you speak the Founding Words, child? Could you tell us where we are?”
I glanced over to the mother and down to the girl who hid behind and peeked around her mother’s body. I was taller than the girl, but not by much. Being only a few years of age when I went into the woods, I knew that I must have gotten older since that time.
I pointed to the symbol on the side of the carriage, the one the bandits had made certain was from some strange named place.
“Yes, the symbol. It is Illanian. We are from the city. If you were to point us the right way, we would be indebted to you. The King would be most grateful and would reward your family handsomely.”
I peered around the mother’s body to the girl who hid her face from me. Her blue eyes shone even under the cover of her mother’s shadow.
“Come on out, Clara. We are safe for now.” The mother pushed out her daughter from behind her. “Do you speak any of the Founding Words? Or Corani?”
The girl wrapped her arms tightly around her mother’s legs.
“Clara,” I spoke softly.
“Yes, yes that is her name. Please, if you could only just tell us where we are. These villains killed our guide and guards. Did not even leave the horses alive by graciousness.”
“Illania.”
“Yes, that is where we are from. Do you know where it is?”
I shook my head to her disappointment. “Come.” I said, holding out my hand.
The mother looked down at me curiously for a moment. Then she gazed at her daughter who started to shiver. She grabbed my hand. Her cold, soft skin caressed into my warm touch and we walked. We moved over the young dying bandit. Leaving him in nature to either blossom or rot.
We continued on the travel for days, stopping and going. Reaching places I had never been before. Through villages of the poor and towns of the prosperous, I saw life in a whole new way. Heard sounds that frightened yet excited me in all the same ways. Smells that disgusted yet brought me so much pleasure in one scent.
The girl who seemed so scared of me had begun to hold my hand as well. We walked side by side through these villages. I felt as though we were all one family.
Something unnatural to me at the time would occur. The wind that guided me for as long as I could remember began to fade. No longer could I feel its pull or push as all it had come to be regarded as was the ordinary wind anyone else could feel.
Horseback seemed a better option once getting good directions towards Illania. We clambered onto one horse. The mother was in the back, I was in the middle, and Clara sat in front of us. We made our way over and through the mountains of trees and in the distance, I could see only a small glimpse of the beauty.
Illania opened up to my eyes as a flower. A large, blooming land that appeared as a thousand red petals in the form of bricks surrounded by miles of prosperous green mountains. Just beyond the city was a great body of vibrant water enclosed within these mountains, and so large it could have been called an ocean to my child eyes. Boats were docked along the shoreline and anchored deep away. Never had I seen so much color in one place before in this large valley. These two angels had come down from heaven to bring me there and I didn’t know it yet, but this place would become home for me. These two people. These two angels. The mother would become my own. This young girl, who smiled back at me with glee, she would be my best friend.
She would be my sister.