BOOK ONE

-

THE WARRIOR ORPHAN

--- Roric 

A storm is coming.

Roric yawned, leaning on the rough bark. The great oak's canopy swayed in the late summer wind, letting through glimpses of sunlight.

The rustle of the leaves, that day, felt a bit different from usual. There was an echo in the air, a noise the child could barely recognize. He held his breath, cold sweat running down his forehead, and focused on that sound.

Screaming voices. Desperately calling for help.

They were coming from far away, but were getting closer. Instinctively, Roric stood up to look at his village. The entire horizon was engulfed by flames-

He woke up all of a sudden, finding himself still lying in the muddy grass.

An excruciating pain, stronger than anything he had ever experienced, spread from a point right in the middle of his back. His dizzy mind struggled to remember how exactly he had ended there, on the top of the hill, as he lifted his torso and checked the surroundings.

It was morning, the sky was cloudy and the Drukh blew from the West but the great oak, now reduced to a charred skeleton, couldn't embrace the wind anymore. It just stood there, silently, its branches eaten away by the fire and stripped of their magnificent foliage. Fighting against the dizziness, Roric crawled towards the tree and touched it.

A stream of memories from the previous night resurfaced. The bandits killing Hars, the kid and his mother curling up in a corner. The house collapsing, the woman struggling and dying. Spjaldir on fire. His father, dead and motionless. Then, the desperate escape through the darkness, searching for a shelter. And after that, the sudden light just before passing out.

I was... I was hit by lightning. That's where the light came from.

Roric glanced at the burned oak, which had probably taken most of the damage in his place, and leaned against it. Despite sleeping for many hours the child was still very tired, and didn’t have the strength to stand. Whenever he dared moving a bit too much the pulsating pain grew, taking his breath away. His head was so full of questions that it felt on the verge of exploding.

What can I do now? Where will I go?

Live, was his mother's last wish. Roric's hand went to the small necklace, still hanging under his tunic even after all his stumbling in the mud. He grabbed it, and tears started flowing. For a long time the kid just cried, thinking about his parents and their horrible fate. In the span of a single night, his entire world seemed to have crumbled on itself.

When he felt a little better, the injured child decided that it was finally time to leave. His mother had sacrificed her own life because she wanted him to survive, so he had an obligation to at least try.

Using a branch of the tree as a handhold, Roric put his weight back on his unsteady legs. Once he was sure he could keep his balance, he took a deep breath and turned his gaze towards the village. Spjaldir, so lively and flourishing in his memories, was now a pile of burning rubble. Two columns of smoke were still rising from the ruins, while a horde of hungry ravens circled in the sky. A single look was enough to realize that he was the only survivor. The idea crushed his hopes even more.

Despite his sight being still blurry, however, the kid spotted people moving through the remains of the buildings.

Bandits? Thieves? Or someone else?

Roric gulped. He had once overheard his parents talking about wars of a distant past. Back then he had learned that raided villages turned into honey pots for looters, who took any junk and leftover valuables. The thought of strangers rummaging near the corpse of his mother made him clench his fists, but then he realized that those men had come too soon to be simple pillagers, and they were definitely burning corpses. What if, the child wondered, they weren’t criminals  at all? The chance was slim, but it existed. Maybe someone among them would have helped him.

The weather was cold, his and clothes soaking wet. The wind wasn't that strong but it wormed inside his body, chilling it to the bones. Roric sighed. Spjaldir, the village where he was born, was now a forsaken place that looked nothing like he remembered. And no matter what he tried, he couldn’t bring it back.

Enduring the pain, that made each step a living hell, the kid began his slow descent along the hillside.

***

--- Tolwin

The men kept stacking bodies onto the pyres.

A hundred dead, maybe more. The outcome of that raid wasn't remotely the worst the old priest had ever seen, but deep in his heart he could never get used to seeing certain things. Many of the soldiers had complained after commander Lowan had accepted a bounty for a common band of criminals, saying that the Duke's task was way too trivial to bother professionals. They had also laughed, because the services of the company were really expensive, and Tolwin had heard more than one advancing the hypothesis that the Lord of Guhrien was becoming senile.

Presently, however, nobody dared to smile. Slowly, like in a funeral march, the mercenaries fed the farmers' remains to the fire. Tolwin wandered around the village, or what was left of it, checking every house for survivors, but it was useless. Everything had been burned to the ground with outrageous cruelty.

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Monsters…

In his long years of service in Lowan's company, the priest had rarely witnessed similar heights of violence, and always in conjunction with the arrival of those belligerent Barbarians from the West. The culprits had put extreme care in leaving no one alive that could identify them, but Tolwin's seasoned commander wasn't a fool. Those tricks were for amateurs. He would have never taken such a clear bait.

Even the priest knew that the people of the Steppes didn't act that way. They always respected the defeated and at least granted them a proper burial, to avoid angering their gods. Moreover, whoever was responsible for that atrocity hadn't completely hidden the footprints, and the company had some good trackers. The criminals were heading South, towards the mountains, slowed by the few goods they had stolen. So, that morning Lowan had decided to leave a dozen men in the village and pursue the criminals with the rest of his forces, knowing that he could reach them before they went into hiding. At that point, nobody could save the raiders from the punishment they deserved.

Commander Lowan's company was one of the many mercenary groups that traveled between the Free Kingdoms in search of contract, offering their services to Lords, cities and rich merchants and using the messy political scene to earn a good profit. Lowan had around one hundred and fifty men at his disposal, all veteran fighters who could hold their own against most opponents and be almost self sufficient. Among the ranks of the company one could find hunters, builders, craftsmen and even a couple blacksmiths. Not to mention Tolwin, who had been their healer for the past twenty years.

The priest stroke his bushy white beard, checking the rubble of what seemed to be a mill. Two charred skeletons lay inside, still in each other's arms.

Worthless scum. The bandits burned these poor folks alive in their homes. The farmers thought they would take what they wanted and left, and were hiding inside. Once the fire spread, it was impossible to get out. How many had to die like this?

Not even the clans from the kingdom of Ekhar, in the North, were capable of such brutality. At least, most of the times, they just took a lot of prisoners and brought them back to their country to have them work as slaves. In all due honesty, Tolwin hoped that Lowan would give the criminals a good dose of their own medicine before putting them down.

The old man was just about to address a prayer to the Makers when a noise captured his attention. Looking around the corner, he saw a child. The poor soul was completely covered in mud, trembling like a wounded animal. After gazing at the ruins of one of the houses with empty, teary eyes for some time, he noticed his presence and became paler.

A survivor!

"Don't be scared," said Tolwin, forcing a smile on his own lips. "Come here, I mean no harm.” 

The little local took a step back, clearly too scared to talk. He opened his mouth a couple of times, but no sound came out of it. Then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed on the ground. The priest immediately rushed to his side, checking his condition.

He had an ugly, bloody burn in the middle of his back and his fever was high. Who knew where he had run, while his village was being massacred without mercy.

I need to carry him somewhere warm and treat his injuries at once. He must have spent the whole night in the open.

Carefully, Tolwin picked up the child and headed to his covered wagon. He took out a woolen blanket and put the small body on it. 

Don't give up, kid. This place has seen enough death for one day.

With a sigh, he closed the curtain in the back and prepared for a ritual.

***

--- Roric

When he woke up, the first thing Roric noticed was that he wasn't in Spjaldir anymore.

He lay on his side, inside what seemed to be a moving cart. While his eyes adapted to the shade, the child realized that his wound had also stopped aching. He tried to feel it with his hands, but it had simply disappeared without leaving any sign or scar. Sitting in that small, cramped space, he assessed the situation.

Roric remembered to be on the verge of fainting well before reaching the village. He didn't know if it was because of the pain or the fatigue but since his mind was a complete mess, at that point he had already forgotten about the ones who were searching the ruins. Still, he had definitely met someone. The last memory the kid could think of was his house burned to the ground, and nothing else.

How long did I sleep? Who are the people who saved me?

The only answer, for the time being, was the dull noise coming from the wheels of the wagon.

***

Whenever Roric closed his eyes, terrifying images came to haunt him. He tried in vain to sleep, tormented by the vision of his dead parents, by the screaming voices he could still hear somehow. Those people, his fellow villagers, calling for help as the flames devoured them.

The corpses were everywhere. And the blood, all that blood...

The more he drove those thoughts away, the more oppressive they became. He spent many hours just curling up in a blanket, wondering if he was going insane.

The hours passed, and at some point the vehicle came to a stop. The curtain that covered the back was moved away, and the light of the day momentarily blinded him. A fairly old man, dressed in a robe that had seen better days, came inside. A full beard, white and thick, adorned his wrinkled face. Bushy eyebrows towered on a pair of blue eyes, much livelier than those of the elders Roric was accustomed to.

"Hello, little one. Nice to see you awake," said the old man, with a gentle smile. "How's the pain? All gone?"

The child was almost sure to have already heard that voice, somewhere. Was that stranger the one who had rescued him? He looked anything but menacing, but his first reaction was of backing up towards the darker part of the wagon.

"Calm down. It’s all over. I'm here to help you."

After closing the curtain, the man sat in front of him and didn't show any sign of coming closer. Roric relaxed a bit, but kept his guard up.

"Who... Who are you, mister?" he asked, with a raspy voice.

"My name is Tolwin. I'm a priest, serving in commander Lowan's mercenary company," answered the stranger. "We were hunting for a group of criminals and… Are you all alone, kid? Where are your parents?"

Only mentioning them made the child feel a lump in his throat. His hand instinctively went to the necklace, but he couldn't find it. 

The priest took it out from its pockets casually. "Looking for this trinket? Here, I took good care of it."

Roric literally ripped the precious memento from the fingers of the old man. He held it tight to his chest, and began sobbing.

"It must be very important to you," Tolwin kept studying him from afar. "What's your name?"

The kid looked at him with eyes full of uncertainty, still hesitant in front of that forced human contact. He wanted to stay alone, but also felt some sincere worry in the words of the kind priest.

"I'm Roric, son... Son of Redian," he murmured.

"Well, Roric," said the man, "Try to sleep a bit. I'll bring you something to eat later. We'll talk when you feel better."

With a deep breath, he turned around and grabbed the side of the curtain.

"Wait, sir Tolwin," the child suddenly called for him. "What happened to... To the bandits? Did you get them?"

The priest looked at him with a very serious expression, and sighed gravely.

"The commander caught up with them a couple of days ago, and gave them an appropriate punishment," he said. "Sorry, I know nothing more. I hope that lightens your loss somehow."

Roric waited until the back of the wagon was completely closed, then he let the tears flow. He tightened his fingers around the small necklace, compulsively, and cried in the darkness until he was spent. Then he slipped into an uncomfortable rest, haunted by nightmares.