The Banner of the Broken Orc: The Call of the Darkness Saga: Book One

by Aiden L Turner

  The priest and healer looked worried. He turned to face his young friend, and all his usual mirth and merriment was absent from his rosy cheeks, replaced with a look of sadness. He turned to Jim. ‘Thank you for your assistance, young squire, but you can leave us now. I’m sure you have other duties you must attend to.’

  Jim rose from his seat and replied, ‘Yes, Father. If I can get away later may I return to see how he fares?’

  Father Robert smiled at the young squire and said, ‘Of course, Jim, he may be sleeping, but he will be here.’

  Jim left the priest’s chamber, offering Jacob a bow as he passed him. When he had closed the door Jacob’s gaze met with Brother Robert’s and he knew that there was bad news coming.

  ‘I’m afraid, Jacob, that the damage in the arm is too extensive to heal by any means I possess. The joint of bone that connects the hand with the forearm is shattered. I cannot fix it, my boy, I am sorry’, Brother Robert told him apologetically, with compassion deep in his voice.

  Jacob began to weep again, silent tears running down the sides of his nose as he asked, ‘Then what is there to do?’

  Robert glanced behind Jacob at the cupboard in the corner. Instantly it dawned on the young prince as he remembered that instruments for surgeries and amputations were kept in that foreboding cupboard.

  ‘No!’ Jacob screamed, ‘It cannot be! There must be another way, please Father. Please’, Jacob pleaded.

  ‘I am sorry’, Robert replied. ‘But there is no other way. Do you remember the lessons I have taught you, on the energy that flows through every living thing in the world?’

  Jacob wiped at the wetness on his saddened face. ‘Yes Father. Everything has two energies, good and bad. The good energy causes things to grow and flourish. The bad energy causes them to grow weak and die.’ They were both now sitting at the table where they had shared so many conversations together.

  ‘That’s putting it a little simple for my taste, but yes, you have the right of it, Jacob’, Father Robert said. ‘Most living things share a balance of the two energies. But when a person or animal is sick or wounded, the balance is disturbed. In essence, sickness or injury can be healed by a priest who can manipulate these forces by taking out the bad and replacing it with good energy, using the techniques I have begun teaching you, but with a wound like the one Gulkin has, there is no good energy left. The hand is dead, Jacob. We must remove it before the bad energy can corrupt the rest of his body. And you must assist me.’

  Robert gathered various jars and vials as Jacob stood starring at the unconscious Gulkin. ‘But Father, surely a priest, or someone with training in medicines, would be a more logical choice in assisting with a life-threatening operation’, Jacob said, pleadingly, wanting to be as far from the man he had disabled as possible.

  ‘No!’ Robert roared. ‘You are the cause of this injury and you will help me save this man’s life.’ He then added in a softer tone, ‘You must understand, Jacob. You are destined for a life of greatness. And to reach your full potential, you must learn many things. Not only must you be capable of delivering damage to your enemies, but you must also know how to treat those who have been damaged and are not your enemy. I shall hear no more on the matter.’ Robert handed Jacob a large vile of milky liquid and said, ‘The sink is filled with water. Add the contents of this vial and stir with your hands. Then take the surgical instruments from the cupboard and wash each one thoroughly. When you have finished, place each one carefully on the table. I shall prepare the patient.’

  Jacob did as he was instructed, taking great care with his task as Robert stripped Gulkin of clothes and lay him on clean bedding. The priest began to make a soft sound, almost like humming, but somehow much more. It induced an air of calm around the chamber as his deep rolling notes thrummed throughout the small room. Peace settled, heavy in the air, almost as if it were tangible rather than a sense. He continued to produce the therapeutic music as he made a tourniquet, from a strip of leather and a thin cylinder of steel, and fastened it tightly, just below the elbow of the soldier’s ruined wrist.

  ‘Jacob’, he said quietly. ‘You see how I restrict the flow of blood? This is to stop him bleeding to death, but you must loosen this binding for a few seconds every three to four minutes. Understand?’

  Jacob looked at the leather strap around the arm and said, ‘Yes, I understand your instructions but not your reasoning, I mean, if the loss of blood may kill him why not leave it in place till the bleeding stops completely?’

  Robert slapped Jacob firmly across his face with surprising force, bringing Jacob out of his bewildered state. ‘The blood needs to flow briefly, to allow the corrupt energy to pass’, Father Robert said harshly. ‘Now, do as I say. When I say. How I say it. Without question. And this man will not die!’

  Robert washed his own hands in the sink and told Jacob to wash his again, then he went to the table and picked up the large knife used for cutting through flesh and tissue. He quickly ran though the other instruments with Jacob and then he came and knelt before Gulkin. ‘Remember to loosen the strap on his arm every four minutes and pass me the tools I ask for promptly and accurately. We shall do fine’, Robert said to Jacob reassuringly.

  Robert made his first incision three inches above the wrist and pushed the scalpel through the tough muscle until he felt the bone. He turned the razor-sharp knife around the diameter of Gulkin’s forearm, sawing slightly when he met resistance. Soon, he had cut a large gaping wound across the arm, peeling the flesh back to allow himself access to the bone underneath. He turned to Jacob and saw all the blood had vanished from his assistant’s face, and he now stood there as if he was devoid of life.

  ‘Jacob!’ Robert called sharply. ‘Let loose the tourniquet. Take a deep breath and fasten it again. Understood, my boy?’

  Jacob did not answer, but he undid the leather strap and was rewarded with a thick splash of blood as the flow returned to the major artery in the opened arm. Nevertheless, he remained calm and reattached the binding, after he had taken a slow and deliberate breath. Whilst he was doing this Robert treated the incision with a yellow powder, which gave off a fragrance that reminded Jacob of the sea. Robert asked Jacob to fetch him the bone saw; an instrument Jacob had also seen in the torture chambers deep under the castle in the dungeons. Robert began sawing and within seconds Jacob’s stomach had had enough. He did not know if it was the squeaking sound of the metal teeth cutting through his friend’s arm, or the smell as the friction warmed the bone, but he could not stop himself from vomiting for the second time in one day.

  By the time Jacob had finished throwing the lining of his stomach up, and had gained his composure, the shattered hand had been removed and Robert was busy wrapping the stump in a poultice made from leaves soaked in a concoction of multiple foul smelling herbs and powders which would become as hard as wood when dried, giving the area protection whilst it healed, as well as keeping it free from infection. Jacob came to stand next to his friend and mentor and said, ‘Is it over, Father?’

  Robert attached the last leaf and stood. Smiling, he put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder and said, ‘Yes, my boy, I shall keep him asleep for a couple of days to let his body heal, then I shall wake him and help his mind to deal with the shock. Relax Jacob, he will be fine. He has served the kingdom with honour for many years and will have a place within its military until he wishes otherwise. Or until the time death takes him to his master.’

  Jacob signed loudly. ‘I do not know if I shall be fine. He is a friend, yet I have wounded him deeply. I am ashamed to say that when we were fighting, Father, I wanted to kill him, and more. I ached to destroy him completely and I do not know why. I shall never pick up a weapon nor don armour again. – it makes animals of men.’

  Robert turned around sharply and grasped his friend tightly. ‘You must’, he barked. ‘You must learn the way of the sword, for you will need to know how to kill. You have a great journey ahead of you, Jacob, a path filled with danger, and if you are
going to prevail, then you will need to be capable of killing. We are finished here, go back to Swordmaster Malick and apologise for your impudence. Continue your lessons in combat and after your night-time meal return to me, and we shall discuss more intellectual matters.’

  ‘Yes, Father’, Jacob replied sheepishly, then left without further comment.

  Chapter Three

  Saviour

  The sun was high in the sky and the Elvenkind were sleeping soundly in their underground city – all but Cameos who had awoken fitfully from another night of disturbing and vivid dreams. He was racked with worry. A sense of an approaching doom, deep and profound, had stolen his peaceful resting. He was chieftain, the leader of his people, and had been for a little more than fifty of his two hundred and twenty-seven years. And they had been a peaceful and happy two hundred and twenty-seven years. But as of late his race was slowly, almost unnoticeably, falling into decline. The life force of Mother Earth, the water from which all forms of life derive, was growing scarcer with the passing of every season and his people looked to him for strength in the face of this growing adversity. But what strength did he possess when he could not control his own thoughts and feelings?

  He left his mate, Releaka, along with his infant son, Caleak, and went to meditate alone in the temple of the Mother. Like all the desert kind, he prayed for the blessing that Mother Earth had bestowed upon him. For every bite of food and every sip of water. He thanked Her for his child and for the protection from the unmerciful sun. Her earth provided for their people. Today, and not for the first time, his thoughts were clouded with doubt as he entered the temple.

  The temple was at the very centre of the underground city, and by far the largest and most visited place in the city. A dome dug into the earth by Cameos’ ancestors over countless lifetimes ago, held up either by some forgotten form of magic, or Mother Earth’s never-ending love for the elves. Cameos had long since given up trying to find the answer to that particular question. Between the floor and the highest point of the cavern was over three hundred feet. The floor was rock, smoothed away to a glossy and polished surface that stretched throughout the entire temple. This was the lowest they would dig, as it was, and had always been, throughout the ages of Mother Earth’s people. The temple was two thousand feet from end to end and a perfect circle with thirty-two tunnels, all equally spaced, carved into the damp earth in the same simple fashion leading away from the epicentre of their civilisation.

  Four of the tunnels only led thirty feet away from their arched entrances that stood one each to the north, south, east and west of the Elven place of spiritual peace, and the community meeting hall. And as with all the tunnels in Elven Earth, they were uniformed in size, six-foot-wide and eight feet in height. These four though, unlike their counterparts, ran to the surface, where the harsh desert that held scarce vegetation and no shelter from the unyielding sun garnered immense fear from the people who resided four hundred feet below. The four surface tunnels ascended from their base and rose in amazing spiral ramps that were a testament to its creators, countless millennia ago.

  The fourteen southernmost tunnels led away from the main cavern and broke off into large halls, though each was only half the size of the temple hall. Eight were covered in a thick, fast-growing grass where animals were grazed and farmed. Flightless birds, about the size of an adult’s head, ran between the legs of the cattle that grazed under the canopy of dirt.

  The hall to the furthest southeast, the gymnasium, was second only to the temple in size and visited almost as much. The hall to the furthest southwest were the chieftain’s offices of power, the courts and his personnel study area. The remaining four halls were interconnecting forests where trees grew and shed their branches to leave a continues supply of firewood.

  The north side tunnels all led to the living areas, which branched off into separate family apartments, all complete with gardens full of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers. All except a medium-sized chamber where the ancient texts were kept, and the Elder took council.

  The entire roof of the temple glowed in a pale blue light that illuminated every part of the city but was never harsh to look upon. As Elder lore stated, the magic of the light was in the life-force of the departed ones. When death took a beloved one their spirit became bound to the light, to watch down upon all those who had yet to make the transcendence to spirit form.

  Cameos made his way through the archway of a tunnel, into the centre of the temple where the pool of life stood. A circular dish fifty feet in diameter and four-foot-deep that sparkled as if made from diamond. The wondrous array of colours never ceased to astonish him, the blues, yellows, greens and reds in so many shades and tones. It was magnetic to view, its mesmerising beauty gripping one’s soul as the colours danced through the greatest gift of all creation, water. And yet, his heart was saddened to see the water level was only half of what it had been when he first remembered drinking from the exquisite pool.

  According to the Elders, whose members were two thousand years in age at the very least, the water in ages before rested level with the lip of the pool, although it never spilled over, and this was so for millennia. But since Cameos could remember, the water level had descended, inexorably, until now only two feet remained.

  The bottom of the pool was completely smooth and unbroken, as were the sides from where the water replenished itself nobody could determine. It was just the will of the Mother.

  Cameos sat alone in the great cavern. In a few hours, the place would be alive with the conversation of his people, but for now he was alone and brooding. His muscular body, clothed in the stark white fur of the desert fox, sagged; his head hanged to the floor. Bright yellow irises became glossy, as tears came unbidden to his cat-like eyes, as he recounted the visions of his sleep. A shifting of images reoccurring in his mind’s eye. He saw his kin laid motionless around the pool, which had ceased its colourful display and now sat empty and drained. The light of the departed became dimmed. Shadows now fell where once there was only light. The cool soft earth in which the race had grown and flourished now felt dry and hard.

  Movement caught his eyes and snapped him out of his oppressive thoughts.

  ‘Ho Cameos. Feeling restless, my brother?’ called Thakern, master of combat, and good friend to Cameos.

  Thakern was easily the biggest amongst them, standing nearly seven-foot-tall, six inches taller than Cameos, and a whole head more in height than the average for one of their race. His shoulders were also the broadest, yet he still retained speed enough to catch and kill, with bare hands, fox, hare and even mouse when hunting the desert during the cool hours of the night. From outward appearances Thakern looked a brute, all except his mammoth and ever-present smile that stretched from lobeless ear to lobeless ear and revealed his true nature. He was much older than Cameos, having celebrated his one thousandth year over two hundred years ago. But Thakern remained ever loyal, and despite Cameos young age he still respected his chief deeply. Thakern was the grandmaster of the unarmed combat that was taught religiously to every male and female Elf alike. His legendary speed and skill had made him the most respected warrior in Elven Earth. Single combat was the foundation of their society, an entertainment and a pastime, but also the way to settle matters of honour and disagreements over mating rights.

  ‘Ho brother Thakern, trainer of warriors, Master of the fist and foot’, replied Cameos with an exaggerated bow and a teasing grin. Just the sight of Thakern always bought his playful side to the surface.

  ‘I am feeling a little disheartened of late. A struggle to see my path clearly has my mind seeking answers when it should be seeking sleep. What of you, my friend, has old age kept you from sleep?’ Cameos said, playfully mocking his large friend.

  ‘Hardly my young and unlearned student, my body is unworked and restless, due to the lack of skill, speed and strength of my fellow warriors’, Thakern stated only half in jest.

  Cameos stood abruptly and tensed his entire body, clen
ched his fist and replied in his deepest, most serious voice. ‘A challenge then, is it? Thakern, son of Thoken. Honour shall be restored this night.’

  Thakern’s smile vanished as he bought back his shoulders, puffed out his stony hard chest and pointed his strong, immovable chin to the heavens. He stood in an imitation of a demigod but managed to hold his pose for only seconds before exploding into fits of laughter.

  ‘Come youngling, let us see if you can break a personal record and last a full minute before I send you to the land of dreams.’

  Cameos and Thakern entered the gymnasium and were not surprised to find it empty. The room was a perfect square, and at its centre, dominating the entire gymnasium, stood the practice pit. A thirty-foot by thirty-foot square, raised six feet from the ground by wooden logs and filled with exceptionally fine soft sand. The rest of the room was taken up with all manner of contraptions built from wood and stone. Each piece of equipment was designed to either build muscle, increase speed or sharpen accuracy. The pit itself was only to practise combat bouts, and for perfecting techniques, but was still bloodstained in many places from the acute level of violence used in the open-handed and closed fist martial arts that were as much a part of their nature as breathing or sleeping. In practice, it was common for bones to break from the lightning fast punches, locks, holds, elbows, knees and kicks. Along with concussions and broken bones, lacerations were also commonly received during most training sessions, deep gashes from the claw-like fingernails that protruded up to half an inch from the fingertip. But in live combat men and women alike would fight with undiscriminating savagery, snapping limbs in such ways that would tear them from the body, ripping flesh from bone, leaving combatants crippled, maimed and often dead. Though these types of battles were rare, the last one occurring fifty-seven years ago, they were a source of great excitement and merriment, where winner and loser were both celebrated for their skill and honoured for their bravery.