Call of the Harn

by JosephGeorge

  Chapter VI

  . Whelp .

  - Seventh Age, year 718

  Arrows impacted, sinking deep into the soft wood of a rotting stump. He felt the force thumping against him, grateful that there was at least some cover in this place.

  Insanity had broken loose only moments before. Walking along the path was the easiest route, but apparently not the safest. The men had come from the forest, though, which meant that they were either a marauding gang whose territory they had stumbled through, or they were being followed.

  At first his fear was that they were Feilden’s men, tracking them through the wild and finding this a great time to launch an offensive, but that was silenced when Duraan knocked a man to the forest floor and began tearing at his chest. There was no armor, and no insignia, just flesh, and it bled red.

  Just like the rest.

  Nearly frozen at the sight of it, he was rudely shaken from his stupor when two more of them began firing a barrage of pointed projectiles at them. Ducking behind the first cover he could find, Aviin made sure that Savill was out of harm’s way.

  The rush to his system was intense as he pondered what the best course of action would be. There was no telling how many men were out there, but one thing was for sure, they were after something.

  Probably the girl.

  But the arrows stopped coming and there was a small patch of silence, just for a moment.

  “Show yourself!” Came a cry. “We promise we won’t shoot you if you come out!”

  Bad idea. Was all he could think to himself. But then, he had spent his days around a much less honorable sort of men. Here, it could be different.

  Peaking around the edge, he saw three of them standing on the roadway, bows knocked and at the ready. The third man had advanced a bit, an axe still perched in his hands. He was short, and fat, but of a hard type.

  “And how do I know you won’t kill us?” Aviin threw back. “Men like you are bound to go back on your word.”

  “It’s that, or we kill you anyways. Take a chance.”

  It smelled like a lie to him. Where was Duraan at a time like this? He’d just, disappeared.

  “I’m in the woods, you fool. Where’s Savill?”

  He glanced at her, as if to check to see if she was safe for a second time.

  But a new problem now presented itself, how was he to answer back? He couldn’t exactly just start yelling.

  She’s safe, she’s very safe. Was all he could muster.

  Perhaps that would deliver his message.

  “Hey! We’re waiting out here!”

  He could hear them advancing towards the obstruction, keeping out of his vision, but he knew exactly what they had in mind. Cutting off both sides of retreat left him with the only option of running straight ahead into the woods, but they would probably shoot him down before he made cover.

  Wheels spun and the cogs of his mind clicked together, searching for a way out.

  “You sure you want to do this?” He asked aloud, trying to question their confidence.

  “You sure you want to die?”

  Perfect, so he continued. “Alright, it’s your life.”

  And they stopped coming. Like wild animals, wanting the kill, but afraid of getting injured, so they became overly cautious. He’d played this game a thousand times before, at least, on paper, and in his head.

  “But we’re not the one’s who’ll be strung up a tree.” Their leader said, advancing another step. His rebuttal was weak, a sad attempt at undermining Aviin’s own surety that he would withdraw victorious in this match of wits.

  “True, but I’d rather get hung on the end of a rope than have my soul ripped out.”

  This was quite fun, and he nearly laughed as he felt the men’s suspicion rising. He peered from his hiding place again to find them still at guard in a defensive stance, but a little less frightening than before.

  “What are you saying?” The man asked, leading himself into the trap that had been set out.

  “Well…” Aviin began, sucking some breath in, for a more dramatic push. “Unless you’ve learned how to block your mind from her…then you’ll have a hard time resisting.”

  “What?” One of the others started.

  Aviin began pushing at Duraan’s mind, pricking him to take action. His short, unorganized plan pivoted on this one point.

  Do something, do it now!

  “This man’s crazy.” The other said, shaking his head and moving forward with an eye for killing. “Just cut his throat and he’ll stop squawking like a bird.”

  “Rerick, I don-“ His words were stopped as daggers of pain stabbed into his mind, reaching in with clawed fingers and raking. The man yelled out, falling to one knee and holding his temples. “Ahh! It’s inside my head!”

  The other two stuttered in their steps, shocked at what was happening. Soon, each of them in term succumbed to this unseen attacker, going in rounds, first one, then the next.

  “Make it stop!” One cried, while the other furiously nocked an arrow and prepared to end the madness, but he was cut short by another mauling of pain at his skull. Aviin leapt to his feet, raising his hands high in the air and screamed as loud as he could, “Run! Run for your lives, or the witch will take you!”

  And so, they did.

  The three of them fleeing from where they had come, stopping only to pull their injured comrade with them. In a few moments, silence returned to the trees.

  “Ha! Their gone! We scared them off!”

  Duraan bounded from the woods to check on Savill, his first priority to secure her safety. But she was happily nestled in a spot of earth that had been hollowed out by the rain, breathing in deep, quiet breaths.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.” He remarked.

  “I can’t believe it actually worked!” Aviin rejoiced over their victory.

  “And I can’t believe you called her a witch.”

  He stopped, looking at the cat and shrugging his shoulders in an annoyed way. “What else was there to do? It worked, didn’t it?”

  “True.” The disapproval left his mind. A simple step, but a rather large one in the progression of their relationship. “But let’s stop talking and do something, before they come back, and in greater numbers.”

  “Okay, but where are we going? This whole time I’ve just been following you, but I think it would be good to know our destination.”

  Duraan licked a smudge of dirt from Savill’s face, which Aviin winced at in slight disgust, and then sat down on the crunching grass. “Yes,” he started, “but you yourself said that you don’t know anything about this area.”

  “Okay, I may have said that, but a man has to learn sometime, right?”

  Great, now I have to train this child like he was some whelping cub. Duraan thought to himself in frustration.

  “Hey, I heard that too.”

  . an excerpt from the book of draal: Chapter XLXI .

  There has been peace for a season in the kingdom as the gateway was collapsed and held shut by a constant watch of the king’s sorcerers. Lord Eiris returned home, victorious with his army of heroes.

  But the winter now descends upon us from the north and our weakened state of affairs has left most crippled. Many died without support or aid, and lack of strength to save themselves.

  Lord Eiris sent his men into the country to help those in most desperate need, but his relief efforts did little to sway the freezing cold that had come upon them. It is becoming the coldest winter of many years, and most are unprepared to face it’s challenge.

  Many have begun to band together, flocking to the larger cities, working as clans and houses to defend against the bitterness of the winter’s wrath and to survive for another season.

  Some die, but most will live to see the return of spring once again.

  And so it was that Lord Eiris won the war and returned our freedoms for a time. Four more years passed in relative peace under his rule, with no sign of the Orr Tav’s retu
rn.

  . A Little Taste of Truth .

  Allow me to teach you something, dear reader.

  It is my story, after all, so I am allowed to do that, am I not?

  We talk of something called pain, but I don’t know if you truly understand what that means. You see, there is laid in every Adonai, every human’s fabric a few stitches that will always be out of place and discolored. Your nature is incomplete, because somewhere along the path to your existence, someone messed up.

  A little tear came in, well…for some it is small, but for others….

  And now you will spend the rest of your short, miserable life in best attempts at repairing the damage done.

  Does this satisfy you? Your hunger for fame and fortune, for the honors of the world? Is this not enough?

  We can speak of another thing as well, because feeling that exquisite thing referred to as pain, and being hurt, are two very different matters. One, I do not know.

  The other, I am well acquainted with.

  You must learn to harden yourself, my friend, for the worlds we both live in have little or no respect for the weak and vulnerable.

  Nur-es, brathak tain.

  . Bartering for Souls is a Risky Game .

  - Seventh Age, year 718

  “I understand the red hair thing.” Aviin spoke, slowing his pace a bit. “But what I don’t understand is why the big upset over it. It’s law, but so is not stealing from your neighbor, and plenty of people do that.”

  “But you don’t understand Remus. He’s strange, and different.”

  Aviin had never really understood him, nor their current political situation. These sorts of things never interested him, and they were not a presence of threat in his life, so there simply was not the need.

  Remus, the emperor of Axis.

  Nearly seventy years on the throne now.

  Some called him the Shtanni.

  Immortal.

  The man who could not age, though Aviin himself had never seen him.

  Once, when he was young, they traveled through Arribinthia, and he saw a statue carved in the representation of their lord and ruler. But nothing particularly spectacular about the man’s appearance stunned him.

  He was just young.

  Perhaps too young.

  “So he’s after any person born with red hair, because it’s law. But why has he made such a big deal of it that they suddenly have become bounties, to be hunted down and given up for a reward?”

  Duraan chuckled, at least, he purred in stuttering tones. “Who knows? The mind of the Emperor is a closed book, and sealed at that. There’s no telling what he has planned in those walled courts of his. All I know is that he hardly ever leaves his palace. Just stares down at the world from that high perch like a half starved bird, wanting more for himself.”

  “How did you learn to speak?” Aviin asked of a sudden, the thought jumping into his mind.

  “Do you mean the Adoni tongue?”

  “Yes, what else?”

  “Now there,” replied Duraan, his mind withdrawing to some far off place, “is a story to tell.”

  They had come far, very far, since leaving the desert’s edge and were now surrounded by ancient growths of thick forest. Trees standing tall and thin against the sun. It was a peaceful place amidst the wooded crowds, and these mighty kings seemed to be sleeping their days off in the warm summer season.

  It marveled Aviin, to see so much of the world, something that did not skip Duraan’s eye.

  “You should tell me sometime.”

  “Yes, but not this time. For now, we should cover another matter that stands in need of a resolve.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you should really stop saying everything aloud and just use the connection we have. It will be much easier that way, and I really grow tired of having to listen with my ears all the time.” He glanced to the left, into the shadowed depths of the vaulted forest’s lair, his probing ears twitching at the slight noises of the glen. “There are so many other things to hear….”

  Savill shifted slightly on his back, making the weight uncomfortable, so Aviin stopped for a moment to retie the makeshift brace that they had put together.

  “Right, and exactly how do I do that?” He asked. “Remember, I’ve tried before, and it doesn’t seem to make sense.”

  “Look, it’s because you’re over thinking it. You don’t need to try so hard. When you think a thought, do you have to tell yourself to do it first?”

  He snorted, then sighed and shook his head. “No, of course not. It just…happens.”

  “Right, so quite forcing it and let it flow.”

  “Yes, and then the problem I have is that the whole world can hear my every waking thought. I don’t want someone in my head like that.”

  Duraan poked his comrades mind a few times, trying to get him to focus. “Understand this, that the only way you will ever keep someone out is if you never let them in from the beginning. But I wouldn’t worry about that. The number of people that can look into your mind, or connect with you, is severely limited. In fact, I only know two.”

  “You, of course. Then who?”

  “Savill, who else?”

  Obviously, but it had slipped his mind because it seemed so natural. According to Duraan’s way of thinking, they had been like that for years.

  Somehow.

  “I’ve been talking with her, I’ll have you know.” Duraan’s new information startled Aviin from the thought he was upon.

  “Talking to her? But how? I thought she was stuck in some other place?”

  “Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still connect with her mind. She’s not lost, just not here.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” Aviin spoke in frustration at being kept away from this knowledge.

  “Please, use your thoughts and not your voice. I really am growing tired of listening.”

  Fine, stupid cat.

  “Ahh, there you go. Good as gold.”

  He could sense the contempt now, but rightly so. Pursing his lips and closing his eyes, he focused only on thinking that one idea.

  “You’re still trying too hard.”

  So what do I do, just not even try!

  “Yes, do that. It seems to work better.” Duraan laughed to himself, shaking his head at what to him was a naïve, and ignorant boy.

  One thing was for certain, while he liked the cat’s company, he still found him entirely maddening. It seemed that there was always some snide remark to make.

  He hoped that they would arrive at their destination sooner than later.