Blood Loss: The Chronicle of Rael

by Martin Parece

  “Then I should kill you now,” Rael growls, “for Demon slew my family. He pushed this life upon me.”

  “You’re such a fool, Dahken. This life was always yours whether you wanted it or not. The demon may have taken something from you, but he gave you so much more. He taught you to hate, gave you strength, and through him you learned to do what you must to survive. You must do so again.”

  “Why should I care? How long have I lived, over a hundred years? And what do I have to show for it? My life is nothing,” Rael replies, mired in self-pity and looking away from the witch’s face.

  “Wife and home, children – they’re not for you, Dahken.”

  “To seek and find death? Is that all?”

  “You must live. You must escape,” she urges, “for without you, the Children of Blood shall never again return to greatness. How many have you found in your travels? How many did you seek out only to find them dead just before you arrived? How many refused to come with you or were held back by others? You are the link in the chain that shall bring the Dahken back from the brink of extinction.”

  “How?” Rael asks, returning his eyes back to hers.

  “I…” she wavers as his one simple question seems to have her stymied. “I do not know, but I know if you die here today it will never come to pass. You will find other things to live for, Lord Dahken Rael, but you must live through this first.”

  “Lord Dahken Rael?” he asks.

  “If you are not Lord Dahken, then who is?” she answers.

  Rael wants to answer with angry words, but none will come. The question frustrates him both in its simplicity and the fact that it has no answer. He ponders this for a time, and he is not sure the Tigolean bitch is even still awake when he asks, “How do I escape from here?”

  She releases the cell bars and fumbles about within her dirty rags for a moment before producing a gnawed upon bone just under a foot long. She says, “This is all the dogs would give me to eat,” and then she kneels on the floor in the gloom. Rael cannot see what she does, but after a moment, he hears the sick sound of the bone snapping accompanied by a grunt from the witch. When she again stands, she shows him two pieces of bone, one of which she discards into the darkness behind her. The other has been broken in such a way as to make it a long and deadly dagger, and this she hands to Rael.

  “What do I do with this?” he asks.

  “You do what you must,” the witch replies, and she sits upon the ground in the darkness to watch and wait.

  Rael turns away from the witch to consider the bone, turning it over in his hands as he did so. Perhaps he could make enough of a ruckus to wake the gaoler, to make him come over to the cell. If Rael could somehow entice the man to enter, he could surprise the Northman and slay him quickly. What if the man didn’t come inside? Could Rael manage to slay the Northman through the bars, and even if he did, what then? More than likely, the fat Northman would just yell at him to shut up.

  Then it dawns on Rael; he does what he must. He reaches under the front plate of his hauberk to feel the chain mail underneath that protects the weak point between the hauberk and the legguards. He pushes this out of the way to feel the skin underneath and the hard muscles of his abdomen. Gripping the bone dagger firmly in his right hand, Rael jabs it into the flesh so hard that at least four inches of bone buries itself into him. He almost bites his tongue off in keeping from crying out, and the witch nods approvingly from her place in her own cell.

  Rael needs his hands free, so he leaves the offending weapon impaling his gut as he grips a pair of saplings that separate him from the next cell closer to the Northman and his fire. They bend as they did before, but this time he forces them further apart, well over a foot, before they start to protest under the strain. There’s a crack, which may have come from the fire, but more follow as the saplings finally give way and break altogether. They disengage from their wedged in position at the ceiling, and Rael pushes them aside as he half stumbles into the next cell.

  The pain in his belly drives him onward while it saps his life, and it almost feels like a terrible cramp that won’t stretch. The gaoler stirs slightly, but remains asleep as Rael takes the next set of bars in his hands. These split and break more easily; perhaps they are older and drier, or perhaps Rael’s blood had made him that much stronger. He steps into the middle of the last cell, and he has never felt stronger, though he knows his time is short.

  He destroys the final set of obstacles with ease, and he steps into freedom, the gaoler awakes with a start. “How - ?!” is all the man manages to say before Rael is upon him. He yanks the bone from his midsection, and he feels so much of his blood pour from his body as if the wounding weapon were also a plug keeping it inside. Before the Northman can do anything lower his chair’s front legs to the floor, the Dahken grips the man’s gray hair in his left hand as he rams the bone into the man’s neck. The weapon’s point penetrates the flesh under the jawbone, and Rael angles it upward to drive it as far into his victim’s head as he can. The man flails feebly at the Dahken’s armored torso, but can neither scratch nor dent it. After a moment, his arms and legs flop uselessly, and Rael steps away from the body, his hands covered with both his blood and the Northman’s. He does not need to feel his own flesh to know it healed fully as the gaoler died.

  Rael takes the man’s sword without a second thought. It is neither weighted nor sharpened well, but it is solid and strong much like the Northmen themselves. He gingerly works his way through the broken cells to his own, facing the smiling witch, and he notices for the first time how jagged and broken are her teeth. He hefts the blade as if to chop through the wooden bars, and then stops himself.

  “I can free you, but first you must tell me why you are here.”

  “Who says I wish you to free me?” she asks. “But if you must know, I insulted their chief.”

  “How so?” Rael asks.

  “The chief’s woman called upon me to help her become with child. I told her that it would not happen, for she is now barren. The green poison that seeps from her womanhood had made it so, and her husband had given it to her – a gift from the Western whores he fucks when he goes ‘hunting’.”

  “You should not be imprisoned for telling the truth,” Rael replies, and he again hefts the sword.

  “No, stop,” she says with hands open and outward. “My time in this world is finished, and by helping me you waste yours. Go now.” The witch turns her back to him and disappears into the gloom of her cell.

  Rael opens his mouth to argue with the hag and, thinking better of it, turns silently to make his way back out of the cells. The warmth of the fire feels good against his cold armor, especially with the knowledge that he must brave the cold snow outside, and after a few minutes he pulls himself away from it. Slowly opening the door, he peeks outside to see that no one and nothing are about in the village. In the distance he can see the men on one of the stockade walls, and he is fairly certain they are asleep with large fires burning on the ground near them.

  The chief’s home has never changed in size or location in a hundred years, and Rael makes his way to it as quietly as his steel armor will allow. He pushes himself against a wall as he looks around the corner at the building’s entrance, but he sees no guards outside. As he approaches, he sees that one of the two great doors is slightly ajar, likely blown open a bit by a gust of wind if none of the Northmen barred it shut on the inside.

  He can hear nothing from inside, no laughter, music or merrymaking often accompanied with drink, so he peers through the crack as well as he can. Rael sees little except the flickering of fires, and this is none to bright. He chances opening the door a little further so increase his field of vision, and the only persons he can see sleep peacefully. He gently opens the door just enough to allow himself entry and steps inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Perhaps a dozen forms lay upon the floor, a few paired up in some semblance of post-coital bliss, and Rael has little doubt that drink has a bit to
do with their lack of disturbance upon his entry. Empty casks of mead and wine litter the floor around them, and the two large cooking fires have waned to gentle flames with no one awake to tend them. The throne of bone sits empty at the far side of the hall, and at its feet lay Rael’s sword and shield.

  He crosses the chief’s hall quickly, assuming that none will awake for the drink addling their minds, and the chief is nowhere to be seen, likely having gone off to his own private rooms. Rael gently lays the gaoler’s sword on the ground, careful so as not to make too much noise, and he belts his own sword and sheath around his waist. He gently lifts his kite shield, the fist-sized blue gem reflecting the firelight with rays of blue, and hangs it over his shoulders by way of its leather strap.

  Rael turns to make his way from the hall, and he stops suddenly when he spies two intertwined forms to his left. He approaches slowly until he stands over them, and simply watches his wife and son sleep, her arms wrapped about the boy. No, she is not my wife, he reminds himself as he kneels next to them. Dried tears line his son’s face, as if the boy cried himself to sleep with his mother’s arms around him, and for a moment, Rael feels as if his own heart may break. He reaches out a hand to brush an errant red hair from Werrin’s forehead, and that’s when his face grows hard with a realization. He is not my son. He was never my son, Rael thinks, and he stands from his kneel. Without a second thought, he storms less than silently from the hall, uncaring of who it may wake as he does so.

  Rael crosses the snow stricken village to the stables, in which he finds his black stallion asleep while standing. He gently wakes the animal and readies his blankets and saddles, and the horse, a fine animal bred for battle, is ready almost immediately. Rael rides out briskly for the stockade wall. As he nears it, he hacks with his sword through the taut ropes holding the counterweights in place, and the great timber doors swing out and open, allowing him to ride through.

  As Rael blows by the other, newer homes of the outer reaches of the village, he ignores all those that may wake by his passing. As he starts down the slope leading into the mountain passes, he decides that he need only reach Aquis as quickly as possible. The Northmen would not dare chase him into those lands. Once there, he can set a more leisurely pace for Sanctum, where he will wait. Somehow, he knows that the boy he lost at the docks in Roka will one day return to Aquis. He need only wait.

  Epilogue

  Cor closed the tome and let it set in his lap for a few moments, the sun shining through the window and reflecting off its leather cover. He’d found this small square room, only perhaps eight feet by eight feet, in the Crescent and immediately claimed it as his own private abode upon returning to Byrverus. He liked it because it had two windows, one which faced east while the other faced west, and this let him sit and read by the rays of the sun for hour after hour, excepting night or around noon of course. He leaned forward in his chair and set the tome on top of the desk he had placed in the room. He slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes to think awhile.

  The desk was truly an amazing work of craftsmanship, if not art, and it almost overpowered the small room as it used nearly half of the space available to it. It appeared to be crafted entirely from mahogany, finished to a high shine. Fine black leather had been inlaid on the top surface; skirting the edge all the way around, the leather created a comfortable place on which Cor could lean his arms while working. Hand carved columns stood at each corner, seemingly supporting the tabletop, and they ended in beautifully carved eagle talons. It was very expensive, but Cor had to have it when he saw it. King Rederick made sure that the Lord Dahken was denied no such things.

  Ja’Na merely sat, waited and watched patiently, and he thought idly about how he’d become so much more patient as he aged. On odd thing that, he thought, for I have less time left than ever before. He looked out the west facing window behind Cor and saw that the sun had dropped significantly lower in the sky, and so the aged Tigolean stood from his own chair. His intent was to quietly exit the room and go about his own business, for he knew that Cor would send for him when he was ready to talk.

  Just as Ja’Na reached the door, Cor speaks with his eyes still closed, “Don’t leave yet, please.”

  “I was afraid you had fallen asleep. I did not wish to disturb you,” Ja’Na replied, shuffling quietly, and slowly, back to his chair.

  Cor opened his eyes and straightened upright in his chair to face the white mustached Tigolean scholar. “Thank you for bringing me this,” Cor said, “but I am curious about a few things.”

  “I will answer as best as I can, but I only write what I am shown,” Ja’Na replied truthfully.

  “You have brought me other Chronicles since you first found me in Losz,” Cor said, to which Ja’Na almost imperceptibly nodded. “Why did you bring me this one?”

  “Did you not know Dahken Rael, and did he not teach you about yourself? I saw and Chronicled those events as well. I thought it important for you to know something of the man’s past,” Ja’Na answered, and his voice wavered a bit toward the end of his explanation. It had started to happen the more he talked over the last few months.

  “This is the first Chronicle I have ever read that is written as if… as if you are there, as if the events are taking place before your eyes and not in the past.”

  “I shall answer that with the words ‘artistic license’,” Ja’Na said, causing Cor to look puzzled. Ja’Na laughed softly. “A sculptor may wish to make a statue of you one day, Lord Dahken Cor, and he may wish to do it in clay or marble or perhaps bronze. As long as the statue suits you, you will leave the medium up to him. Will you not?”

  Cor smiled at the old man’s response; he had never considered that those chosen to receive the Chronicler’s visions would alter them to suit their own artistic needs. It was an interesting idea, and he wondered if they changed the Chronicles themselves as well. Would the interpretation change with the mindset of the scholar penning it?

  “I have another thought, another question that I have never been able to answer. Maybe you can shed some light upon it,” Cor said, leaning forward to place his weight on the desktop. The scholar bowed his head slightly. “Pagus the Paladin, the Rose Knight I believe he called himself could have killed Rael with one more blow from his mace. Instead he chose to discard the weapon and hurl a punch at Rael. I have seen this before from King Rederick. The blow delivers what I can only describe as a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, and the body struck is struck by the strength of Garod.”

  “I know of what you speak,” Ja’Na agreed.

  “It had no effect on Rael. Rael died fighting alongside me, as I am sure you know, and the power of a priest had no effect on me while it killed Rael,” Cor continued.

  “I remember.”

  “What happened to Rael that he lost his immunity to Garod’s power?” Cor asked.

  “A question I have pondered myself, Lord Dahken Cor.”

  “And what answer have you come up with? I know you have one,” Cor concluded.

  “I have two that make the most sense to me,” Ja’Na agreed with a nod. “The first is that Rael’s armor was his father’s armor, and his father was a Paladin like Pagus. Perhaps we should look into the history of the making of that armor. If it was forged with Garod’s power, then perhaps it refused to protect Rael from the same power.”

  “An interesting idea,” Cor said, again slumping backward in his chair, “but that would assume the armor was… intelligent somehow.”

  “Would such a thing be so hard to believe? Would you deny to me that you have felt the wants and wills of Soulmourn and Ebonwing? Do you think your blood led you to Noth’s armor, or did Noth’s armor call out to your blood?”

  Cor tightened his lips and furrowed his brow over this, and he had to admit defeat to the old Tigolean. “What is your second belief?”

  Ja’Na paused before answering as he searched the Dahken’s face. “Understand that I do not believe one to be correct over the other, but I thin
k it’s possible that, at just that moment, perhaps Dahk allowed his power to leave Lord Dahken Rael’s blood.”

  “But why would He do that?” Cor asked.

  “Because Rael needed to die for you to become Lord Dahken Cor Pelson,” Ja’Na replied.

  Cor closed his eyes for just a moment, not particularly enjoying the implications of such a statement. What other actions, other motives had Dahk – Doctor Harold Brown – hid from him? After a moment, he opened them and said, “I have one last question that I hope you can answer.”

  “I can only try.”

  “Well, you have penned many Chronicles, and I figure anyone can answer it if you can,” Cor explained, and Ja’Na again bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the compliment. “I haven’t dealt with it as much as Rael did, but I have followed my blood across the West and back. Why are we Dahken always called about the world?”

  “I do not know, except to say, perhaps your god is more involved in your lives than you realize,” answered the scholar, and he turned to leave the small office. Just as he passed the doorway, he turned back. “May I ask you a question, Lord Dahken?”

  “Of course.”

  “How goes your own Chronicle?”

  “My Chronicle?” Cor asked, inadvertently glancing at a scroll that he had thrown in disgust into a corner of the room the day before.

  “I know not what else to call it,” Ja’Na clarified. “Perhaps Chronicle is not the correct word. Memoir, perhaps? Treatise. Yes, treatise is better.”

  “How do you know about that?” Cor asked suspiciously.

  “The Chronicler shows me much,” explained Ja’Na, and he turned away to head home.

  THE END.