Advent of the Roar (The Land Old, Untouched Book 1)

by Benjamin M. Piety

  Bernard reaches out, the dagger in his east hand, the other at the burned man’s neck. His heart beats wild. Like skinning a neox. Are yous a good man?

  Bernard chokes him.

  The burned man immediately reacts and pulls against Bernard. Scratching his forearm, his eyes begging for release. The pain is evident as he kicks and struggles with Bernard. What am I doing? And then he thinks of Jame. Burning in the house alone. Unable to escape. Bernard squeezes his mitt, and the burned man’s eyes begin to bleed. His entire face goes purple. The man squirms hopelessly in Bernard’s potent grip.

  Bernard then stabs him in the side; the man’s mouth opens to scream, able only to gasp. Bernard stabs again, a tear in his eye. He leans in close to the man inches from being sent left.

  “Your war will never start. Your fire’s unlit.”

  The man is left.

  Motionless. Bernard stands in horror. What have I done?

  Without hesitation, he turns and pulls a stick and pad. He writes a note and sticks it to the blood of the man’s body, which gradually soaks through it. Bernard opens the door. The hall is still empty. He leaves and returns to his room.

  Are yous a good man?

  Chapter 7

  SANET'S CONFESSION

  If it wasn’t the scream of panic and anger that awoke the sleepers of Bomwigs Ale, it was the banging on everyone’s door. “Get up. Get up!” Bernard, already awake, stands at the door, waiting for the crimson men to reach his. He keeps his ear to the wood. Two doors. One door. Bang bang bang.

  “Get up.”

  Bernard leans back and pulls the door open, holding his foot at the base to keep it firm in case the men attempt to barge in. He holds his dagger at the ready. Down and up the hall, other patrons peek their heads out, confused and out of sorts.

  Logan pokes his head out. “What’s all this ruckus? It’s barely morn.”

  “Someone calling themselves Stone Fingers sent Franz, whose being torn apart by proshing decomps. And this sendleft wrote a note like a shnite vigilante.”

  Others in the hall begin to murmur. Logan doesn’t answer. His eyes dart to Bernard, who nods. Logan attempts to hide his surprise, but not before the man sees the exchange. He turns back to Bernard.

  “Do you know something about this ‘Stone Fingers,’ friend?”

  “That man was asking for it from a dozen eyes.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t asking to get sent.” The man narrows his gaze, peering closer at Bernard’s visible hand. “Why are you wearing those leather mitts, old man?”

  Logan calls out from behind, “Heyo.” The crimson man turns straight into the butt of Logan’s pistol. He falls unconscious to the ground. Another of the crimson men, who at the time is interrogating another friend down the hall, turns. Logan looks to Bernard. “Time to go then?”

  Without waiting a minor, Bernard grabs his already packed rucksack as the crimson man shouts to anyone who’ll listen, “Stop them!” Sanet steps from her sleeping room and aims her crossbow down the hall and shoots the man in his leg. He pauses in a stupor before falling to the ground.

  Barely dressed, Sanet and Logan take a major to grab their rucksacks and then head for the stairs. The rest of the patrons, still waking, remain motionless, unsure of who to trust or what to do.

  Rain pours as the door to Bomwigs bursts open, the three friends tumbling from the tavern. Catching step, Logan points to the road leading down into the valley and toward the Carvinga Tunnel entrance. “This way.”

  As they run, they fling their rucksacks over their backs. Brute comes jogging from the forest edge around the backside of the tavern. Faster than them, the creshwillow leaps and claws onto Bernard’s rucksack.

  Behind them, eruptions of gunfire. “Get back here, sendlefts!”

  They continue to run, the road having turned into slick mud.

  Sanet shouts through the heavy rain, “We should steer from the road.”

  In agreement, the three shift from the main path and onto what transforms into a sudden drop. Bernard halts before the others and grabs a tree. Ahead of them, lightning flashes, followed by thunder.

  “It will be tricky getting down there quickly.”

  “Don’t think you’ve given us a choice, Stone Fingers,” Logan replies with fury in his eyes.

  “Apory. They sent Jame left.” Bernard’s heart feels a sudden tightening. What have I done? Why did I have act in such malice? He feels sick. And vomits.

  “We can grit about this later; let’s first get to the Tunnels. They won’t shoot us once we’re around all the other bodies,” Sanet yells, pulling Bernard, who wipes his mouth.

  She leads them through a hazardous descent. Slick rock covered in moss and rain and towering trees and branches make every step a careful choice. Above them, the shouts of the pair of crimson men echo across the valley, though their pursuit loses steam after a few early stumbles on the rocks.

  “You can’t run, Stone Fingers. We know who you are, you shnite beast.” After a few missed shots blasting the branches and trunks above the three, they halt their pursuit.

  Continuing down the rocks takes the better of two hours and with a few nicks and bruises on their arms and legs, they make the valley floor with the Carvinga Tunnels entrance only a few hundred strides away.

  Sanet turns to them. “It’ll be good to put the tormisand behind us, right, friends?”

  Bernard is the last to drop to the level ground, where Brute is waiting for him. He hops onto his shoulder. “I’ll need a minor please.”

  “There’s a killhung once we’re inside, Bernard. We should rest there.” Bernard, kneeled over, takes a deep breath and waves them off.

  “It’s you who put us in this rush, Bernard,” Logan calls back.

  Bernard knows. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to move on. Perhaps he forced this adventure. But it’s too late to turn back. He takes a deep breath. “I know. I’m coming.”

  The entrance to the Carvinga Tunnels is grand, standing two hundred measures high, five hundred strides wide, and noticeably busier than the forest Highlands behind them. Friends march in and out, making their way along a main road, which leads to the sea to the far east and the Guloren border to the west. The walls of the entrance cut sharp and straight, vertical to horizontal.

  Pacing closer, Bernard glances up at strings of yellow neon illuminating the tunnel, solid strips of light as far as he can see. Stepping in, he notes the way the rain behind them creates a curtain of water from the top of the Tunnels and splashes down into mud-drenched puddles below. Children play against the waterfall, splashing each other, jumping into the water, and laughing uncontrollably. Older friends move with purpose and direction, while others, like Bernard, stand in awe of the impressive sight.

  Ahead, among other shops and stores carved into the Tunnel, a killhung serving food and drink curamed Radiba Lasts stands, bustling with friends. The neon throughout this building fades from green to red. Friends sit and eat an assortment of odd delicacies. As Bernard passes one breathless-looking friend, he sees little bomwigs wiggling about a plate as the man stabs at them with his prong and then slurps them down, with an indulgent gulp. Sanet and Logan, unmoved by the alien Land, find a booth inside the killhung. Bernard sits, setting the rucksack to his side. Brute pads back and forth along the back of the seat, observing his surroundings.

  “Stone Fingers?”

  “Apory.”

  Logan speaks plainly. “You could have sent us left.”

  “I didn’t go into the dusk to send a man left. I couldn’t sleep. And I heard footsteps. And Henrick had returned.”

  A thick waitress comes up to them. “What can I get you?”

  “Waters, please,” Sanet answers.

  “Some coffee sticks to start. And eggs under,” Logan orders.

  “Over for me,” Sanet doubles.

  “Nothing for me,” Bernard says, still sick in his stomach.

  The waitress writes the order on her pad and walks away. Bernard looks
to the two of them, who sit in silence, watching him with confusion and judgment.

  “Henrick went to that burned man’s sleeping room to send him, and I gritted him out of it. When Henrick left, I couldn’t sleep. The thought of Jame—” Bernard looks to his hands. His little finger is bleeding.

  The waitress returns with three glasses of water. “Your sticks and eggs will be out in a minor.” She leaves.

  Logan fiddles with his thumbs before responding. “Were you not taught that retaliation is no way to uncover justice? It’s one of the most basic Radiba tenets. It’s how we live in this peace. That was an act of a tenfooter. And those men won’t stop—”

  “I know, Logan. I know. But it’s not the way I chose to act, nor what I think was right. It was just what came over me.”

  “Why did you leave a note?” Sanet asks.

  “If I didn’t write anything, they would have believed it was that family. I would have sent them left for what I did.” The burned man’s purple face flashes before him. The stab of the dagger. His hatred.

  “Bernard,” Sanet starts, “I have to tell you something, and this may counter Logan’s belief; but when I spoke to that protnuk, she said something about you.”

  “The Dark Valor . . . you’ve mentioned.”

  “Yes, that. But she also said that you would ‘miss the nine but one more.’” Bernard looks up. “When you went into that fire, when you lost your fingers, all but one? I thought it was a coincidence. And then I thought the one more was Jame.”

  Logan interrupts. “Protnuks? How is that relevant?”

  “Miss the nine but one more?” Sanet looks to Bernard, staid. “She also said the Dark Valor, the sleeping man, you . . . would be the one who reunites these pieces.” She pulls from her pouch the sliver of brass. “That you were the one who would stop the war.”

  Logan’s eyes narrow in confusion. “Brass? What is that?”

  “Me?” Bernard asks.

  “I know. As I said, I dismissed it. Even with the coincidence of your fingers.”

  “Why do I have to reunite the brass? What does that even mean?”

  “Do you know what a Dark Valor is?” Sanet asks. Bernard shakes his head. “He or she comes from humble beginnings and is met with great tragedy before the Land calls upon them. They are not heroes. Nor villains. They act only as arbiters for the Land. To protect it.”

  “Are you saying sending that man left was what the Land wanted?” Bernard scoffs.

  “I’m saying the fury you felt inside you is from forces larger than your own.”

  “If it weren’t me, it would have been Henrick. And my fury was from that man setting fire to my haynest. It was their act of selfishness and it was my act of retaliation.”

  “And that’s what I’m saying a Dark Valor is . . .”

  The waitress returns with the eggs, setting a plate in front of Sanet and Logan with the bowl of coffee sticks between them. “Enjoyments.”

  “I’m going to double with Bernard, I find these religions of Yikshir to be a bit flam.”

  “I’m not saying this to convince you that some protnuk in a random cave foretold the coming of a Dark Valor. I’m telling you what she said, and what that means to me.”

  Logan takes a few bites of his eggs. “Look, Bernard, I do hope you can approsh that I understand what you did. I think it was the wrong thing, but I also know we cannot undo our past. A truth I struggle with. And I know it won’t be easy dealing with what you did.”

  “They sent him. That proshing beast sent him left.” Bernard starts to cry.

  Sanet reaches over the booth to comfort him. “You have nothing to concern yourself with. The Land chooses the path.”

  Bernard takes Logan’s and Sanet’s hands and squeezes them. They both wince.

  “Careful there,” Logan yelps.

  Bernard retracts his mitts. “Apory.”

  Logan smiles. “With a grip like that, you better find someone else to jumble your jolly, or you may end up hurting yourself.” Sanet and Bernard grin slightly. “I know you’re a good man, Bernard.” Logan squeezes his shoulder.

  After their mornmeal, they each take a bit of coin to purchase appropriate clothes, for the trek into the Tunnels would get considerably hotter the deeper they delved. Sanet bargains for a new dagger, as does Logan, though his new blade is duller and simpler than the one he gave away to the smith, and ammunition for his pistol.

  As Logan sheathes the knife, Bernard calls out to him, “I cross to reclaim that blade for you.”

  “If you’re going to be some Dark Valor, that’ll be good enough, Stone Fingers.”

  Bernard grins and shakes with Logan on the terms.

  Part Two LOGAN

  Chapter 8

  FIRES ACROSS THE LOTHATIN

  Perhaps it’s because he’s feeling tipst from a doubled pour of Bomwigs Ale, but when Logan sees the handsome woman in a green hood tracking carefully through the forest, he elects to tail her. Her efforts between the trees and across the boulders of the Radiba Highlands is smooth, precise, and hypnotic. He wonders who or what she might be tracking, and as the full sun passes toward dusk, Logan’s patience wears. He becomes bolder. And decides to approach.

  She stoops behind a large rock and raises a crossbow hung from her side, aiming it into the deeper forest. Logan scans its trajectory and discovers a frek he hasn’t seen since he was a boy: a large headless neox. Returning to her aim, Logan projects that she’s likely shooting the neox square, but the bolt would hit the frek in the best parts of its meat. Probably flam, but—

  “Ma’am. Psst. Pssst.” The bolt releases. And misses.

  Still crouched and with a single and unflinching reaction, the woman reloads, then aims her crossbow toward Logan, who responds by lifting his hands to his head.

  “Ma’am, I appize the missed shot, but you were going to ruin a good portion of the meat there.” He points his finger to an absent neox.

  She stands upright, her crossbow fixed straight and paces closer. “Are you jarent?”

  Logan grins, taking a step backward. “A pinge.”

  “I’ve been tracking that beast for months.”

  “Tracking? One neox? For months? Are you that afraid of omens?”

  She presses the crossbow closer to his face. “Is this how you bargain for your life?”

  “No, apory. May I put my hands down? I cross I’m not your enemy.” Carefully, Logan draws a small X on the east side of his chest. The woman aims only a minor longer before dropping her crossbow in frustration. Relieved, he lowers his other arm.

  The woman looks back to the empty forest. “Your timing is shnite.”

  Unable to disagree, Logan doesn’t answer. After a minor, he says, “I can only give appize once. Curam’s Logan.” Without turning back, she gives her own.

  “Sanet.” Looking at the elegant woman further, Logan has a sudden rush of guilt. Something about her—

  And then she turns back, her face both anxious and—is it shock? “You said your curam is Logan?” He nods as she bites her lip and narrows her eyes.

  In this minor reflection, Logan presses further, “If that neox is headed south toward the Lothatin Bridge, any number of friends on the other side are sure to . . . find it. Its parting path now is likely but a . . . fiddle and tease.”

  In a deep breath, Sanet replies, “I’m just tired. I should be after it, but I need sleep.” She leans against a tree, closing her eyes.

  Logan steps over. “You seem so familiar to me. Like I’ve seen you in a kiptale.”

  Sanet opens a single eye. “You say that to all your lyns?”

  “Did it work?”

  She shrugs as she leaves the tree, adjusting her rucksack and holstering her crossbow.

  Logan continues, “I should at least cook you a duskmeal. As I said, that frek’s long gone and will be likely hunted by a dozen friends. If you need further sums, my home’s a day-and-a-half’s hike in the same direction.” She doesn’t answer. Still pressing, he
goes on, “You’re heading there anyway, so let me walk with you.”

  Sanet eyes him slightly before giving a resigned huff. “A hot meal does sound good.”

  “A bargain then.”

  He pops out his hand in wait. Sanet presses her lips together, and they shake.

  ❖❖❖

  As they set off through the forest, Sanet undoes her long black hair, letting it tumble past her shoulders. “I say this with no intention to frighten you, but I followed you mainly because you’re tremendously handsome.” A sudden flush of embarrassment washes over Logan. “That and I was feeling a little bold after some Bomwigs Ale.”

  “I’ve not had the pleasure of Bomwigs.’”

  “Well, I can’t refuse terrible ale. Bomwigs is the first taste of home after the Tunnels, regardless of where the sun’s living.”

  “You’re from here in Radiba?”

  “I am. Parents took me in when I was very young. My mother’s from here. My father from out west in Organsia.”

  “I’ve yet to travel west. Is that where you came?”

  “Yep. Where I go every year. Four months there, four months back. Though, I decided that this will probably be my last trek haynest. Only staying for a few days.”

  “A four-month trek for only a few days haynest? You sound as flam as me.” Sanet steps across a puddle. Logan attempts to help her, but she quietly refuses.

  “In truth, I wasn’t planning on coming back but didn’t want to leave a few things behind. And to double, Radiba’s a handsome sight this time of year, isn’t it?” The air sits brisk and light while songs of jarjers soaring above fill the lush green forest with a familiar and welcoming sound.