I am writing a book series for me. I will likely never publish it. It is going to be an epic fantasy, with at least three if not five or more books.
It's the best therapy this gal has ever had.
I want to share some of it with you. I am not sure why the formatting is all messed up, I apologize for that.
"There comes a time in a savaran’s life, where he may think he knows enough about the enemy outside of the walls to keep those inside safe. He may even master the art of detecting a pretender that cunningly preys on the indecisive minds within those walls. The battle that every savaran dreads, knows he has never prepared enough for and hopes he never must face, is the loss of the skill of discernment, his ability to trust himself to make the right decisions in every facet of life. Every savaran wears this skill as a badge of honor. It signifies the pinnacle of his training. It is the culmination of years of self-discipline, denial of a hedonistic life, and sacrificing his well-being for the protection of those much greater in achievement and much more supremely oriented in life." - Kuchek Sumeil, Skahbad of the savaran, at Culketh Artresk in the Kingdom of Teiv Navendon in the year 5643 speaking to the savaran under his command.
If a savaran of the Navendii or Drakeelii tongues, excelled with warrior prowess and deftness in the skills of leadership he might, if a Skahbad retires or dies, have a remote chance of becoming the Skahbad over his own regiment of skilled and elite guardsmen.
The process some have said, can all start quite suddenly one day, and that day would end with the realization that childhood is over. Some families prepared their male offspring for the inevitability of the call to duty with rituals starting on their ninth birthday to prepare them for the summons they would assuredly receive following their tenth birthday.
Priests were summoned to purify the young boys. They attended classes weekly to develop a spiritual attitude that was conducive to living a lifestyle beyond reproach. The family sometimes hired special coaches to prepare their young sons mentally for the life-threatening challenges to come. Parents and their sons would join special community fraternities that would only socialize with other families that were preparing their children in the same way.
Some coveted the time with their sons and hid them from the life their savaran fathers were obligated to pass on to them. For those whom this news was pure drudgery, there was no celebratory festival to commemorate this rite of passage. Many times, this was the lot of families who were not well off and could not afford to lose a son who helped care for the family. In this case, a boy might be grabbed by the back of his neck by his father, an uncle, or an older family member, and dragged from his mother, if he has one, as she gnashed her teeth and wailed as if she was feeling her birthing pains again.
He might be taken in the middle of the night, without so much as a word of goodbye, and certainly no food for the journey. He was told by the older men, "It's time. It's our lot in life. We must serve as our fathers and uncles did before us. "You better suck up that snot boy and not nobody better ever see them tears again, 'specially me!" Those who did cry with muddy little creeks running down their dirty faces were brought to the wagon or steed bound for the city of Drakeel with the bright red mark in the shape of a large hand on their ruddy cheek. That mark was made with a fury that comes from the intolerance of fear and cowardice. Some wouldn't be able to sit long in one place, sporting a hidden bruise from a belt buckle under their breeches.
The odious man that came and pried Brei'h Drakari from his peaceful life one particularly windy day, did his best to make sure the pain inflicted by failing to perfect his skills as a savaran far exceeded the pain of leaving his Muti's arms.
That's what Brei'h called his mother, “Muti”. The day that man came for him, Brei'h was just outside the cottage door feeding the salt-and-pepper colored desert fowl Muti had raised from chicks.
She was fastidiously preparing bread for a meal and intended to have Brei'h slaughter one of the hens. As the sunlight intruded into the four-paned window in her kitchen it, highlighted the floury mist that was rising from the butcher-block counter that represented the hub of the kitchen. She was kneading his favorite rustic bread to put in her brick oven. Oh, how it had a wonderful crunch which delivered culinary ecstasy when fresh warm smek butter was slathered on it.
As she punched and kneaded the silky, smek milk and yeast bread, she closed her eyes reveling in the rays of warmth and pure joy she felt raising the only child she had left. Damn! Her thoughts of joy always had to lead to thoughts of those waiting in Elori-al for her.
Eyes still closed, warm tears seeped under her eyelids and gently danced down her cheeks, finding the path of least resistance, they glided toward her nose and she licked them, tasting the tender salty friends that had comforted her all these years. She caught herself drifting away into grief, feeling that an eternity had passed and noticed she had almost over-kneaded the bread, she put it to the side to check the oven outside.
Akia allowed herself to pray to Ashua in Elori-al during the short walk to her bread oven. She prayed that Martek her oldest son, whom she'd had when she was 17, and who had died when he was 19 was taking care of all his brothers and sisters in Elori-al.
She thought of the two little ones that had died before they could take their first breaths. She had burned their remains and kept some of their ashes in pouches, marked with letters to represent the first letter of the names she would have called them.
There was sweet, fearless Solis who at age 9 succumbed to Elinid Fever. He remained optimistic that a priest could heal him even as his tongue, esophagus, and nasal cavities rotted away making it impossible to feed him.
Smart and bossy Nohemi was trampled by a townsman's horse when it became spooked by a gorok, jumped its fence and ran into Akia's garden where Nohemi was gathering fresh crimson roots.
She offered up a prayer for her twin boys. The image of their faces, still swollen and red, covered in vernix and curly black hair, burned into her retinas. Still able to remember going into labor with no one to help but her children as the townspeople were afraid to come near the Drakari household, the second born was without oxygen too long when the umbilical cords tightened around his neck. His premature twin died a couple of days later despite Akia's frantic efforts to care for him while trying to keep her sanity and care for her other children.
Lehla died at six from drowning in a canal when the bank she was fishing from suddenly gave way. The swift cold water that brought life to the town of Tanist, brought death again to Akia. She was only 31 when Lehla died.
Akia had seen her reflection three days later in reflective glass in a merchant's shop in Tanist. She had recalled how that day she noticed much of her hair was silver and she had many lines on her face.
Another darling girl born two months too early lived for several weeks. Ashua took mercy on the little maiden struggling to grow and Akia buried her next to Lehla. She planted a Setrine tree over their graves to keep them safe from scavenging pests.
Many months later a brief visit by Macinn left her with another pregnancy in which Akia barely escaped with her life when she miscarried the little one. She did not know the little stranger’s sex and neither of the doulas dared look through so much blood and flesh to answer that mystery.
Many more lines and silver were hers to inherit when her baby, her Jano, died at 4 years old. He and Brei'h were her saving graces. She lived only for them and fought off Macinn's amorous advances toward her so she could focus on raising her little men. She wagered that at least one of them might be taken for services, but one might grow to marry a young woman and take care of her in her old age.
She couldn't even entertain the slightest memory of how Jano died, it was the most painful and unthinkable of them all.
Akia left her dead children behind, left her home, and disappeared like a whale’s mist into the wilds of Teiv Navendon. That was four arduous years ago. It might as well have been a thousand years ago.
Living a life filled with unrelenting hypervigilance, waiting for sleepless nights to pass, and perceiving every stranger as a perilous threat had worn her spirit to a nub.
She had finished walking back to the cottage and her boot heel clicked the step to the grotto. Brei'h looked up at her and smirked. I've still got him, she mused, willing the statement to be an eternal fact, as she walked past Brei'h and gave his disheveled hair a quick fluffing up.
Akia positioned her thumb and first two fingers into the Sacred Triad and touched her forehead, her lips, and her chest to protect her thoughts from the Sakrils.
Brei'h looked up at the cottage and saw his Muti's beautiful, tanned face in the window as the afternoon sun illuminated the high points of her face. He adored his mother. He remembered, laughing to himself, how he used to tell her he wanted his father to die so he could marry her.
He thought it wouldn't be so bad if he found a nice, round, and beautiful woman who looked like his mother, for a wife someday. He planned to take care of his mother and give her many grandchildren.
He stayed up at night thinking about how soon they would be leaving this place to move again. Muti moved often to stay ahead of anyone who might be trying to track them. They had lived here a long time and he had begun to wonder if she meant to stay for the long term.
Akia hadn’t gone into much detail when justifying their nomadic life. She had told him, “Brei'h, the savaran want to take you away from me because your father was once one of them. I already gave them one of my sons, but since your father left their order, they demand you take his place. We must keep moving so that we can always stay together...so you can get a pretty wife and have children, so you can have your own home and learn to be a brave, honorable man. A man that would make our Creator Ashua, proud."
"Yah, yah, cluck cluck...you'll all get fed, stop fussing," Brei'h chided as he attempted to spread the feed out evenly for the noisy hens bustling around his lanky legs.
His disheveled curly black hair barely passed his ears. It fell into his lake-green eyes, but not enough to where he couldn't see. The breeze blew some of his curly mess aside and he glimpsed something in the distance.
There was a man riding from the north on a massive black horse, kicking up dust that blew to the east.
Brei'h could tell the man would be closing in on the cottage soon and he tripped over Shooki, his favorite hen, as he scrambled to the cottage door sending the desert fowl squawking and flurrying in all directions.
"Muti, Muti, a man's commin' from the south real fast, on a big black horse!"
She set her teeth on edge, put her chin up, and wiped her sweaty brow with the back of her left hand covered in flour leaving a streak of powdery white in her hair. She reached into her apron to make sure her Spir dagger was still there. "Get the crossbow Brei'h, load it and stand in the shadow beyond the doorway. Point it at the ground for now and fire it at our very unwelcome guest if I tell you to!"
He nodded and ran to grab the crossbow from the hook on the wall. He sprung over to the cabinet next to the hook and flung the door open, grasping for an arrow in the dark shadows. He grabbed one and cut his finger on the razor-sharp edge. Leaving the cabinet door open he jumped over to the staging area and set to his task.
He struggled to load the arrow in the bow, cutting another finger on the spring clip and pinching the skin between his thumb and hand on the nut. As sweat dripped down his brow and his blood stained the tiller of the crossbow, he could feel the prick of panic setting in. Suddenly he needed to pee, his hands were shaking, he felt dizzy and wanted to vomit.
A thought flashed through his mind, they must be in a dire situation, if Muti is considering the use of a crossbow! He forced himself to breath slower and blinked the stinging sweat out of his eyes. Out of the shadow and peering into the distance, he looked for signs of the rider. Visitors were never good news, especially ones riding large black horses.
Watching the rider as he approached the corral that resides a hundred paces south of the cottage, Akia glanced at her little man in the shadow just beyond where the light from the door touched the floor.
Noting his intentions to stop at her cabin, she watched as he slipped off his saddle and wrapped the reigns around a corral pole. She watched him as he looked around the grounds and smoothed his hand along his horses hindquarters.
"Whatever happens, Brei'h, know that I am always with you and I am always proud of you. This may not end well for us, today. I think this man is from Malik Banipal’s Army or…,” she trailed off. As he started walking toward the cabin she could see the dark tatoos on his eyelids and above his eyebrows.
“He might be from the savarans.” A growing molten mass of fear abruptly coagulated in her gut. To herself she thought this very well may be the day that she has been running from like a Selorian desert hare races away from an Elfrith eagle.
Brei'h swallowed hard as he tried to wrap his mind around what his mother just said. The savaran. His father’s people. A spike of adrenaline hit again, his pupils dilated, his hands started shaking and his mind started racing. “Is this man here to take me away?” Brei'h thought.
Akia squinted as she looked out of the open cottage doorway to get a better focus on their visitor. Almost instantly she recognized one of several men who were the bane of her existence.
She cursed the man's father, cursed the ground he walked on and spat on his imaginary grave at her feet. Standing at well over six feet four inches, Tirlock Cryton made a formidable enemy.
Curly black hair running in the family, Akia noted that was the only physical feature she shared with her brother. His brooding manner and ridiculous seriousness were always irksome to her.
"'Spose it suited you just fine, you squeil dung," she mumbled under her breath as she recalled his demeaner. She glowered at Tirlock without saying a word as he stalked up to her open door, stopping just short of the door jamb out off to the left. "Tell him to put the weapon down."
"How did yo...."
"I know you, Akia.” He looked at her through thick lashes. He had been traveling from the east and after extracting information from some settlers who were swayed by monetary rewards, he headed south over the river to her cabin. “You know I must take him, Akia. You can't hide him any longer.” He looked at her with an unfeeling glance and peered into the cabin while keeping out of range from any weapons hiding behind the door in the shadows.
With a slight of her hand she signaled for Brei'h to lower the weapon. With her eyes she commanded him to remain wary as she looked to her left.
“The savaran Code demands that he serves in Macinn’s place, since his father…well…” With the loss of words, he licked his crusty lips, blinked hard to clear the film in his eyes. “We will raise him now in the way of the savaran Oaths. No boy should spend his life under the care of his mother, especially without a father. We've paid good money for our tracker to find you and I aim to make good on it and take the boy with me."
She took offense to his archaic rhetoric. She sucked in and sprayed him with the slimy contents of her nose and throat.
Balking with utter disgust he wiped his face with his tunic collar and glared at her incredulous, "Woman! How dare you. You're my sister, but if you were a man, I'd knock your teeth out for that.”
"If you were a man, you wouldn't be here, you'd know this barbarism has got to stop. Ripping children from their families and brainwashing them to think that those inbred bastards that sit up in their high towers can dictate everyone's station if life. It used to be an honor to serve, it meant something to be chosen for that life, it used to bring respect to a family, not drudgery, not...." Her thoughts left her, she blinked, looking down she exhaled.
“Where were any of you when I was being abused by that monster? Where was the protection for me and my children? I know some tried to help when he was into using the mer, but I still felt abandon by you all.” She closed her eyes and looked down. “Especially you, brother, my own blood.”
Her eyes sprang open. She reached for her apron and feigned wiping her hands to clean them. Impulsively, she reached down into her apron for the spir dagger.
Tirlock who had been watching her anxious hands and body language, lunged into the cottage, sending Brei'h, who had crept around toward the back of the door, into the wall behind him, causing him to lose his balance and causing only his torso to fall against the wall.
Brei'h had to throw his arm back to balance himself, making certain he didn't shoot the arrow into his foot.
Tirlock grabbed her wrist, pulled her arm out and back around behind her while grabbing her hair with the other hand. He slammed her into the door jam, his legs in a lunging position. "You want to play rough, is that it, sister? I can oblige you."
She grimaced with her cheek smashed against the door jam and whimpered momentarily. The pain of having her hand torqued in such a way forced the dagger out of her hand and it fell with a heavy clank and thud on the floor, looking just as defeated as she was feeling.
“I can’t go back in time Akia and undo any of that,” he snapped in her ear. “I made a lot of decisions that I have regretted. I did what I could with the information I had at the time.
“I am facing prison time if I do not return with this boy, thanks to your husband”, he said, “The responsibility was transfered to me as I am his uncle. This is all thanks to a man you just had to marry.” He eased up a bit on her, yet still held her firmly.
Continuing his lecture, “I distinctly recall the day you told me to stay out of your life when I begged you not to go through with marrying him. You chose him, Akia, you live with that, woman!”
Seizing the moment, while the two adults were quite pre-occupied in their struggle, Brei'h dropped the crossbow onto a sack of flour to come to his mother's aid. The crossbow, being unbalanced on the flour sack, tipped back and the trigger hit the small cast iron oven on the ground next to the hearth which activated the trigger, and a deadly spear-headed projectile whizzed past Tirlock's head and lodged itself in a cabinet door.
Brei'h froze momentarily as he considered that someone could have been skewered just then.
"I'd have brought my regiment with me if I'd known the two of you were going to put up such a fight,” he said. He was used to dodging death, just not from the hands of a twelve-year old and a spiteful woman.
Akia stole a moment from fate to stomp on Tirlock's instep and then attempted to heave her head backward to slam into his face and hopefully break his nose.
Tirlock's reflexes were on point as he wistfully moved out of range from his sister's thrashing while keeping an iron grip on her arm.
Returning to his senses, Brei'h saw that his uncle was caught off guard again with attempts to immobilize Akia and his abdomen was exposed.
Brei'h lunged at Tirlock and punched him in the gut as hard as he could. While ricocheting off his formidable uncle, he kicked him in the left shin. For twelve years old, Brei'h was large and muscular like the men in his family.
His uncle faltered back slightly and then proceeded to cough profusely. His scale armor could withstand arrows, spears, and swords, but it was maleable and a good gut punch still did some damage.
Akia used the scuffle as a chance to gain space from Tirlock as she moved toward Brei'h and clutched him to her. Her actions were meant only to punish Tirlock. She knew there was no escaping, even if they ran outside. There was no way to suprise him with a weapon at this point.
Recovering from the damage to his diaphragm, and cursing the loss of skin on his shin, Tirlock spotted a pitcher of milk, grabbed it, and drank straight from the pitcher. As he did so a slight of his hand pulled a dagger from its sheath on his belt. His boorish behavior earned a loud-spoken curse on his life from Akia.
Recovering from the blow to his abdomen, he sent a reverberating belch into the room.
He laid down his intentions, “Look, you two, I'm not leaving here without him."
He glared at both of them with the dagger drawn. His stance indicated he was able to take on whichever of the two was foolish enough to lunge at him again.
“You've shown your might, don't force my hand anymore. I don't want this to end badly."
"It already has, you squeil dung!” yelled Akia. “You are taking the only person who matters to me in the whole world. My only living child!”
“I left his father, that bastard. I wasn't gonna have my only living son grow up and be that kind of monster. I moved to where I thought you'd never find us. I failed him," slowly turning to her little man, pursing her lips, "I failed you Brei'h. What he said was right. I did choose my pride before wisdom and stayed with your father.”
Addressing Tirlock she said, “I couldn’t stay with mother and father though, either. Father was awful, I needed to escape. You were gone, I had no one. I didn’t think the issues Macinn had would grow to consume us all.”
Numb to her excuses, a side effect of savaran training, his uncle reached for his arm to take him and Brei'h tore it away from his grip.
"I refuse to go with you, uncle or not, dagger or not. I will not go!" Chin jutting out, lips pursed, nostrils flaring, "You'll, you'll.....have to kill me!"
Chuckling, Tirlock sneered, "Like I said, good money has been paid to have a tracker locate you two and I'm leaving here with you, preferably alive."
Turning to Akia and back to Brei'h, he softened his composure slightly, "Look, this isn't the end of the world, Brei'h. Yes, I am not your father, but I am your mother's brother. I will watch over you and train you like I would a son.
“In fact that is what I face prison time for if you are not returned. The savaran High Council sees the abandonment of your father as a crime against the Sacred Oaths. They have found that since I am your mother’s brother, the responsibility is now mine to bring you to them. Your absence constitutes the result of a crime against the savaran and they will have their justice.
“I will teach you honor and skills that will keep you alive. You will learn to protect and fight to bring honor to our oaths so that you can keep Teiv Navendon’s people and it’s leaders safe.
“It seems unfair, after the way your mother says it,” glancing with pursed lips at Akia, "but the savaran leadership in Artresk and Drakeel have made changes. I can make sure you get good positions and you will never be fighting in some muddy ditch. I can get you into savaran positions that are less menial and you will live a blessed life."
Brei'h leveled his eyes to the right and then back up to the arrow lodged near the door jam. Surreal as it was, Brei'h managed to calm down and talk respectfully to his uncle.
"You say things are different and the way you describe it makes sense, but you're still taking me from her. It's not that I'm afraid, you see, it's that it'll kill her if you take me, sir, er, uncle, and I don't want to be the reason she dies." No longer able to hold back the weight of the situation, tears began to form in the brim of his eyes and he self-consciously wiped away the watery traitors.
Seeing this tender emoting, Tirlock became impatient, "You've raised a ninny, Akia. What kind of a smekherder do you take me for?" Mocking Brei'h, "I don't want to be the reason she dies...for the love of Saint Elfrith's aunt, I've had enough of this! Get a knapsack and get going before I knock you unconscious, drag you out of here, and tie you to my khamsa!”
Resigned to the inevitable, Akia nodded to Tirlock in acquiescence. Her son had started to shuffle outside. "Brei'h, here!"
Akia took off a necklace from around her neck and handed him a chain with a ring on it. " I was savin' it for you to give to your wife someday. It was mine and my mama's before me. Don't look back and don't doubt yourself, Brei'h."
She slipped the silver chain around his neck, "You find that place inside of you that was me and you and you protect it with all your might. Damn what he and his ‘oaths’ say. Just learn lots, be the best, be honorable, and always, always, follow Ashua’s ways!"
She hugged him, smelled his hair, and ran her fingers through it for the last time, savoring the silky disheveled curls. As her heart ripped apart in her chest the reality of the situation set in.
"Let me send you with something to eat," she stalled, "it's a long journey to Drakeel.” Fighting back tears and sensing the burning on her face, she gave him some jerked meat, cheese and bread in a sachet.
Tirlock attempted to look at the food inconspicuously. He was hungry and very thirsty.
She bent over to Brei'h's ear and whispered, "You don't have to share this with him, the bastard can get his own." She straightened, inhaled quickly and exhaled, " Take the bay, he'll be a good one for the trip. And Brei'h...put a bunch of pellets and some water skins in the saddlebags...and don't forget your bed bag...and..."
"I got it, Muti, I will put all the usual things in there. You have already taught me well to be a man," he proclaimed glancing at Tirlock hoping that jab would earn him some respect in his uncle's eyes. Slowly with resignation and slumped shoulders, Brei'h followed his uncle to the barn.
The desert hens rushed to greet Brei'h, hoping to finish their breakfast, and Tirlock swished them away with his dust cape, sending them squawking toward the grotto. The lazy domestic vivesector who should have announced Tirlock's arrival sauntered around the house and rounded the corner to sheepishly bark at the two figures walking to the barn.
Akia turned to see what she could find to distract herself before she imploded with disgust, fear, and grief.
Spotting her dagger on the ground, she picked it up, turned it over grabbing the blade, and patted the handle on her other palm. A few foolish plans to slit Tirlock's throat or stab him in the kidney raced through her mind, but she thought better of them.
She had grown up only two years younger than Tirlock. They had been close, but their choices in life had changed that. When he had brought her the news of Martek's death with little empathy, the affection she'd had for him completely succumbed to its slow and impending death.
Akia put the dagger back in her apron and distracted herself with continuing to knead her bread with angry ferocity. She put the cloth over it when she saw them exit the barn, Brei'h with the big bay in tow.
They had loaded up with feed for the khamsas, water bladders, and several other implements and incidentals that they would need for the trip.
Akia trusted Tirlock to do just at he’d said, to raise her son like a father. She did not doubt that. He could carve an existance out of a desert wasteland or treaturous mountains. He knew how to find water from plants and roots, make fire, defend himself, and make shelter.
She stepped to the threshold of the door, wiping her hands on her apron. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand and with the other she waved to Brei'h. Burning tears streaming down her face she wiped them intermittently as she waved.
"Turn around and wave my little man...wave at me," she pleaded quietly into the morning heat.
He must have sensed her desperation. He turned, saw her, and waved back, giving her a weak smile.
His uncle, anxious to start blazing trail, had already lifted into his saddle after tying the bay to his saddle horn.
Brei'h mounted the saddled bay and began to follow his uncle's khamsa as Tirlock clicked his tongue and whipped the reins on his khamsa’s neck.
Tirlock turned in his saddle to regard his sister, but she had already retreated to the refuge of the cabin. He turned back and kicked his khamsa into a smooth gallop, which the bay followed, to put some distance between the boy and his mother as quickly as possible.
Copyright with Author of this blog.