Minzkala

by Amy E Hix

  “You guys don’t need me here?” I asked her. I knew I shouldn’t have. It would only serve to stir up any feelings of resentment I was beginning to have. And no answer she could give would take them away.

  “Twenty, Majaswraero,” she answered, “that’s all they’ve chosen. I hope you understand. You’re very good at what you do, and the incident on your way here proves that. But surely you don’t expect to be part of the top twenty. Though you are growing into a fine man, you’re still younger than many of the seasoned fighters.”

  But she was my mother for crying out loud. The Minzkalans were like a second family to me. I knew this place like the back of my hand. I did everything as they asked. So why wasn’t I chosen?

  My mother didn’t say anything else for a while. She let me sort through everything I was thinking. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I felt cheated.

  “Majaswraero…” she called to me as I rose and walked out of the room. I didn’t look back. I just left.

  No one was out on the city streets. What was wrong with me? Surely, I had the same blood running through me as her. I had been taught well. I could out-heal almost every Cleric I had ever met except for maybe my mother.

  I knew what it was. They thought I was careless in combat situations. We had talked about it before…after the incident with the Cerapithalis, and several years later following an incident I had in a fishing boat.

  I thought looking danger in the eye was a good quality to have. Was I supposed to be afraid? Was I supposed to let a dog-boy kill my mother? Just sit idly by and heal ’em up when it’s all over with…that’s what they expected. And I could do that, too! They just needed to give me the chance.

  I left the city gates and kept walking. I felt flushed and tears of anger flooded my eyes. I was weary from my trip and more than that—I missed being a part of my mother’s life. Seeing her once every five years or so? I didn’t want that for the rest of my life! And how could I know she was on the other side of the battlefield without me there to protect her?

  I unsheathed my sword and began to strike at everything around me as I continued. I know, not the best reaction, right?

  After traveling nearly to the boundary of Minzkala, I was calming down a bit, getting tired really, but I was still angry.

  I didn’t want to fight for Rhalas. Who did I know there? I decided I would just go back home and get back to my daily grind of jewelry-making and cart-toting.

  I walked back into my mother’s quarters about an hour later. I had decided to tell her I was sorry for running out first, and second, that I really didn’t feel like Rhalas was my place.

  She hugged me back when I came through the door, tears in her eyes. And she said it first.

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “No, that was all my fault, mom. I guess it’s probably part of the reason I wasn’t chosen to be here with you, and that makes me even sorrier.”

  We just sat there in the embrace for a minute. I felt like a kid again. Things slowly eased up and we found ourselves back on the sofas, quietly contemplating everything.

  “I really just want to go home if I can’t be here. I don’t feel like I belong in Rhalas. What if I mess up there, too?”

  “You won’t,” she reassured me.

  “Well, I still don’t think I should go. I have a nice life in Turchaesh. It’s peaceful there…”

  “It won’t be for long if we don’t face the Legion, and you know that,” she interrupted, “Look, I don’t mean to pressure you into something you don’t want to do. Every warrior has the right to decline the summons.”

  She put her hand on my arm. “Just do one thing for me—wait until tomorrow to make your decision. Go and speak with King Naethan about it.”

  I knew she was going to do that. My father had died when I was very young. Ever since King Naethan had been a part of our lives, she would send me to him for advice on big issues.

  He had the Gift of Celestra, an ability that granted him wisdom beyond any seer’s ability. The gift was only given to one other person in the history of Gael, a Champion by the name of Khola. And that was almost four-hundred years ago, before things went south in Sapir.

  Living in a remote area of the island was one of the issues I remember the King advising me on. Mother wanted me to keep our home in Minden, but I felt like exploring my options near the mines. And that mountainside was calling out to me to build a house on it.

  Things didn’t turn out so bad then. King Naethan thought it was a fine idea and even sent a little Celestrian help to complete the project. This shouldn’t be so bad, either.

  “All right, deal,” I told her.

  She smiled at me and then her look changed to sudden adoration. I hate it when she does that…ha. No, I don’t. I love it.

  The next day, I went into the King’s throne room expecting to tell him I thought I should go back home and him to say he thought it sounded like a fine idea. But the very moment I looked into his eyes, something changed.

  “Turk!” He exclaimed and met me with open arms. “You are a sight for sore eyes! Come and let me look at you. How old are you now? Twenty-six?”

  “Twenty-three,” I smiled. He always upped the number to make me feel older than I was.

  “How goes the trading?” He asked.

  “It’s going. There’s a pretty good living to be made in the jewelry business.”

  “Very nice to hear that. Oh! Come, I have something to show you.” He led me away through a corridor and into a large gallery.

  It was like a museum, filled with mounted heads of extraordinary creatures, antique armor suits (though Minzkalan antiquities still blew the socks off anything you’d find in Maralune), and weapons set in show cases that kept the dust and oxygen from aging them.

  I remembered this place vaguely. I think I got in trouble here once when I was young; I was told the room was off-limits.

  “This…” He pointed to the mounted head of a Cerapithalis, vividly capturing the disgusting livelihood of the dog-boy. “This is yours. Don’t let me forget to have it sent to your home. It’s the one you met in the forest a few years ago.”

  He walked around the podiums searching for something else. There were paintings on easels depicting fight scenes. Some of them had to have come from somewhere other than Gael. The scenery was far too different to be from our lands.

  In one case, a broken sword lay beneath a plaque that contained a short story of the sword’s origin. The sword was two-thousand years old and belonged to a military officer named General Rowe who broke it when he used it on a Dredge Serpent in the lava pits of Gilhriest, wherever that is.

  “Ah, here it is.” It was a painting he was looking at. “Nearly half of these paintings belong to your mother.”

  I walked over to where he was and looked. It was a painting of my parents and me when my father was still alive. My mother had captured to near perfection the man I fondly remembered. He was stern and noble. Just before he died, he had been promoted to Imperial Elder. He and his companions had been sent to Sapir to take part in a secret mission several years after the Caliginian War. None of them came back. There was talk of a rescue mission years later where they discovered the decayed heads of my father and his men on stakes set out around the northern shores of Sapir, near the mines.

  As I looked closer at the painting, I told the king, “It’s very nice. I have the perfect place to put it, above the mantle in my den.”

  “Excellent. I’ll have it sent as well,” the king said.

  As we turned to leave the gallery, the king almost read my mind and started telling me the story, “You know, we were able to retrieve all of the slaves from Sapir except for one small group of Nomes. Many saw it as a futile cause, but your father insisted we go.

  “We tried to get more, but the men who were asked to join us were all old enough to rem
ember the terror they faced as they fled to Maralune. And our small success in the Caliginian War was countered by the massive loss of life there. Six-hundred men died to save four-thousand people. When they looked at the numbers, the people didn’t feel it had been worth the cost. But your father did.”

  I saw the analogies in what he was saying. What they were trying to do now was bigger than just me and my time. It would be recorded in the history of Gael as a struggle against a faction so large and so vile that even failure would be considered brave and honorable, a resistance of a valiant nature.

  The other option: To sit by and let the Legion destroy our whole world, one small piece at a time. Eventually they would control Turchaesh. Eventually my own children would become their slaves if we didn’t do something to stop them.

  That’s what my father fought for. He fought for me. My heart suddenly changed. Instead of looking for my own fame and fortune, I now looked at this battlefront as an effort to secure the freedom of all people in Gael for generations to come.

  The twenty warriors chosen before me now seemed like a small number. I could be a part of the revolution of Gael. I could choose to be like my father and resist the Legion with every ounce of my being, even unto death.

  Nine

  Journey through the Mourtaire Forest

  Kaliesto

  In precisely one month, my new Dwarven partner and I left the training city of Kenkara. We would journey to the heart of the Mourtaire Forest, where we would find Minzkala. The first day had already proven to be long and arduous.

  The new armor we had crafted by the local blacksmith made us look more warrior-esque, but with only a month of advanced training, we both knew that experience was going to be the key element in becoming what the Ancients truly needed. With anxiousness, we bid the others with good hunting and left out of the small city before sunrise.

  We carried long bows with arrows on our backs and a short sword to our sides for close-ranged combat. I had a few tree-climbing gadgets and had crafted a holster on my boot to carry my father’s dagger, passed on to him by my grandfather, and given to him by none other than King Naethan himself.

  Mabashi was an expert Fletcher and could make some of the best arrows known to man, including prismatic and vortex arrows.

  If there was anything we were lacking for the journey, it was experience in combat situations. Both of us had been trained in our hometowns; me by my father and three older brothers, Mabashi in a local militia group. But there is something to be said about actually confronting a real threat such as a Slicker, a Digvi’jan Warlord, or even a Cerapithalis.

  The Cerapithali were giant wolves from Vahael, Humanoids that wore armor, carried weapons and could think and speak. They stood twelve feet tall and had wings like a dragon that spanned nearly eighteen feet.

  There was a horn, slowly developed throughout their lifespan, which sat at the tip of the nose. The size of the horn signified which were elders.

  The jaws of these creatures were tremendously huge, and a bite would cause a person to begin the transformation into a Cerapithalis; we call those who are bitten “the tainted”.

  Cerapithali are able to disguise themselves in the form of any creature or being they have killed or tainted and acquire almost all the powers and special traits of those victims.

  It was creatures such as these that made even the bravest warriors fear traveling through one of the unguarded plains or forests and into the desolate regions of Maralune. And through armies of such creatures, Mabashi and I would be expected to stand strong to bring victory to Maralune.

  We complemented one another. I had the higher intelligence with keen senses including the ability to see in the dark. Though I was trained with the bow, my training with Cyrow helped me become better with a sword, but not anywhere near to Cyrow’s talent.

  My encounters in the grove beneath Jalathiel could be easily numbered. Other than the small village of pesky Trolls and a few renegade bandits, the fiercest creatures I had gone against were common Werebats in the Dusk Caves and the occasional Gremit near the southern border of Evergrove; and all of these paled in comparison to the creatures of the stories my brothers told.

  The twins were now serving the Ancients in the lands beyond Maralune. Shortly after traveling to Vamei, Sigge and Raffe were called to Minzkala, before their initial training was complete. They were practicing Spirit Healers, with enhanced skills from Minzkala. I would eventually meet up with them.

  Cyrow had been given the title Jalathiel Blade Maven when he arrived in Vicete. He was quick and agile, leaping high into the air as he dual-wielded a pair of razor-sharp Shatari swords.

  His training officer had come to Kenkara before Mabashi and I left and told us Cyrow’s skills were elite. On his journey to Minzkala, however, Cyrow had been tainted by one of the Cerapithali. I got the news shortly before I was to set out. Upon hearing it, I felt deep pain. That feeling was alleviated somewhat by becoming educated on the process he would undergo and being given the hope of stopping it in time. So, my pain turned to focused anger.

  I couldn’t understand it all then, but it would become a special courage that would help me on the battlefield, if I could learn to wield it. Retribution is what my trainer called it.

  Mabashi, my Dwarven companion from Khala, a city to the west of Rhalas, was short and stocky as all Dwarves are. I was pleasantly surprised to have him as a partner, for he was a couple of inches shorter than even me. He had two long braids that tapered down the edge of his head, neck and chest.

  I heard many stories about my new friend while we were in Kenkara. Of course, he didn’t boast in the accomplishments, but rather wrote them off as a stroke of good will granted to him. Mabashi was a Trueshot, positioned on the walls of Khala as a sharp shooter when the city was under attack.

  Under the control of the Digvi’jan Warlords, clans of Trolls and Bandits would wreak havoc in the area, killing off as many as possible in the smaller cities.

  Mabashi had a one-track mind; to kill. They say nothing could be heard from the Archer on the battlefield, not even his breathing, as he displayed intense focus on striking the given targets. They said he’s one of the best.

  While we were in Kenkara, we bunked together for the month and learned a lot about each other during our initiation phase. I listened as Mabashi told me about his wife and small son back home, and Mabashi said he couldn’t wait to meet my brothers.

  Before we left Kenkara, Mabashi was sent to choose two gorehounds to go with us. The two brindle-colored male hounds, Core and Jinx, were already trained to track when he picked them out.

  Mabashi continued training them to include some combat skills they would need just to survive the trip. The 220 lb. hounds would prove to be useful on our journey; an essential addition, some would argue.

  The path through the Mourtaire Forest was enough to bring despair. Very few plants and trees grew in the dying wasteland. Many years earlier, the forest had been completely torched by the Digvi’jan Warlords, who hoped to find the city of Minzkala.

  What the Digvi’ja failed to realize was that the Orb, a force-field surrounding Minzkala, was unbelievably powerful. Beasts and Humanoids alike are judged by the magic contained in the Orb as soon as they walk through it.

  Should they be judged to be attempting to enter the city with malice or even innately vicious intentions, he or she or it would never even know that the city existed. They wouldn’t even realize they had passed through the Orb at all but would continue marching through the forest as normal.

  But if the one entering was found pure in heart, immediately the foliage would magically become lush and green, with trees of magnificent variety lining the landscape. Birds that did not live outside the Orb would be soaring through the air; and some of the most beautiful and legendary creatures in all of Maralune could only be found inside this magical kingdom. It was here that we were told we wou
ld find the city of Minzkala, and in Minzkala, the Ancients.

  After a full day’s journey, the sky began to darken, and we knew we would need to start hunting for a good spot to camp for the night.

  Though I could see my way through the dark night, it would be hard for Mabashi to keep up, and I knew this would assuredly allow for more of his Dwarven belly-aching. That’s not a complaint, just a humorous observation.

  In addition to Mabashi’s lack of night-vision, we both needed rest because we would have to travel at least one more day to make it far enough into the forest to find Minzkala.

  Mabashi gave the hounds the command to “eat”, and Core and Jinx took off in the same direction, obviously on the trail of wild game already. Then he and I cleared some brush and created a barrier around the campsite using the fallen trees.

  This barrier would disguise our presence in the forest as well as help protect us throughout the night. We had been instructed that once evening came, we would need to be completely alert, for that was when we would almost certainly meet the minions of the Digvi’jan Warlords.

  The night was warm and would remain so until morning, so there was no need to start a fire; no need to draw attention to us being there. We pulled out the cured ham from a supply pack and broke off some of the bread from the baker’s shop back in Kenkara.

  As we began to eat, Core and Jinx returned with a couple of jackrabbits and began to devour them. They were ravenous with hunger from the long day’s journey.

  When I finished eating, I pushed on a few of the fallen trees around the campsite to make a spot to sit with a backrest. I leaned my sword up against the side of the post.

  The hounds found a corner in the wall of trees in which to curl up, periodically raising their eyelids to catch one more glimpse as they nodded off to sleep.

  “I’ll take first watch,” I told Mabashi as he began to place the blankets down in the clearing.