Tim Marquitz - Dawn of War

Ellora felt a growing heaviness in her chest at having seen the strange man’s arrival, a sense of foreboding she could not place. For no reason she could explain, she glanced up at the sky and spied the red-orange eye of A’ree staring down upon her. A squirming sickness roiled in her stomach at the sight.

The moon was a portend of ill tidings to come. She looked away as a chill prickled the skin of her arms.

Ellora’s father had gone to the gallows under the angry eye of Ree. Her mother too had met her own sad death during the Tumult. Her spirit broken, her flesh ravaged by the diseases borne of her desperate need to provide for her daughter, she drew her last ragged breath as the Iron Ocean raged against the far side of the Fortress Mountains. But despite her effort, that last breath was one of condemnation.

No one to care for her, Ellora was taken to the Ninth and cast amidst the orphans who fought for space to sleep on the mildewed and cold floorboards of the old orphanage. The king’s meager coppers did little to make their life better, but it kept a rotting roof over their heads and maggot-infested bread in their bellies.

Ellora’s hand brushed against the hidden pocket sewn inside the waistband of her threadbare pants and sighed as she fingered the two, thin coppers snuggled inside. It had been a poor day for beggars on the Sixth.

She glanced at the moon once more and cursed it, turning to watch the sun as it dipped below the jagged peaks of the mountains. She called impatient to the other orphans, gesturing toward the sky. It was a long way back to the Ninth. If they hurried they could make it before the shadows swallowed the streets.

For all the difficulties the orphans of Lathah faced during the day, they were nothing compared to what nightfall would bring were they to be caught out in the dark.

Ellora shivered and counted heads. Once she was sure they were all together, she rushed them toward home.

The shining glow of A’ree at her back, Ellora wondered what she could have done to the goddess to have upset her so.

The daylight silence of the woods around him exploding with the coming of night, Domor sat low in the raft as the inhabitants of the Dead Lands shrieked in eerie displeasure at their presence.

He glanced at Jerul and noticed even his blood-companion had sunk lower on the wooden bench. Having rowed throughout the day, save for a few hours when Domor had taken over so the warrior could nap, Jerul’s arms trembled with effort. The purple veins at his cheeks stood out, swollen against the almost glowing pale white of his face. The warrior huffed with each rotation of the oars, glistening sweat running like rain across his broad chest.

But despite the weariness that seemed to infest his movements and had stolen his voice from him, Jerul’s blue eyes shined with an alert wariness. They darted like angry wasps, flitting back and forth but never lighting on any one thing for more than just an instant.

Feral howls peeled from out of the darkness, sending cold shivers dancing down Domor’s neck and back. He slunk further into the raft, cursing his long limbs when he could sink no lower. His feet butted up against Jerul’s swords and pack, and there was nowhere for them to rest. The craft had not been built with the gangly limbs of a Velen in mind.

He muttered a quiet complaint and glanced out over the rail to spy movement at the water’s edge. A dozen red eyes glared back at him, shifting and shimmering in the formless black that devoured the trees. Guttural barks and growls were flung at them as they passed, the eyes attempting to keep pace through the dense underbrush. Muted splashes followed them along as the creatures repeatedly tested the boundaries of the water.

Higher in the trees, sibilant shrieks cut through the night like the whistle of arrows. Domor searched the dark sky of the canopy each time he heard the droning buzz of an insect whirl by. Tiny tracers of pale green light marked their path overhead.

Domor’s knuckles ached, having clutched at the hilt of his dagger since he and Jerul sailed into the Dead Lands. He finally released his hold and groaned as he extended his fingers, the knuckles popping like bugs in a fire. He shook his arm to return blood to his hand, tingling pricks dancing amok along the skin.

Every once in a while, glimmers of A’ree cut through the canopy and seemed to dye the water blood red where it struck, as if opening a wound upon the surface of the river. Jerul drew Domor’s attention to one such beam.

“Ree watches us in her fury.” Jerul’s voice was raspy, the words harsh whispers.

Domor grunted and reached into Jerul’s pack to pull a waterskin from within its crowded depths. He tugged the plug free of the valve and squirted a liberal amount into Jerul’s open mouth.

“I had just begun to believe that Ree had blessed us with traveler’s luck, my friend, keeping the beasts at bay upon the shore, their sharpened teeth far from our flesh.” Domor flopped back onto the deck and took a sip of the water before sealing it and returning it to the pack. “But I defer to your judgment that we’re simply waiting for our doom to descend upon us, and I have only fooled myself into believing we might make it to Nurin alive.”

A tiny smirk of measured tolerance flickered at Jerul’s lips. “Ree tempers the good she provides with ill to humble even the most charmed of her children. Your sharp tongue may well strip the skin from fools, but it does little to sway the goddess from her path, of which only she knows. Mock her not lest you draw the attention of her fury.”

Domor settled back with a wry grin. He and Jerul had danced to this tune many times since their bonding. It was a rousing composition, with much give and take weaved amidst its notes.

Though born a Velen and raised amongst their pious kind, closest of the races of Ahreele to the Sha’ree, Domor asked questions that his people had no answers for. It was what set him apart, a near pariah amongst the Velen.

He’d been taught the story of Ree’s awakening and could recite it by rote, even deep within his cups. He knew the power of the magic that spilled from the ground, yet he could give no credence to the goddess’ presence as more than the stone upon which he walked. In all his fifty years, he had never once felt her hand in either guidance or disdain.

Though he believed in Ree-her flesh the earth, her anguished tears, shed at the misery of her great awakening, the oceans-he could not subscribe to the blind faith of the Velen, or the Yvir for that matter, that the goddess played a role in their lives beyond the physically obvious. Life was just life; it ebbed and flowed like the weather, clear skies to storms, only to clear once more when it was ready. Life was theirs to navigate, built upon their choices, good or bad, and not fettered to the whims of the goddess.

It was this belief that most upset Jerul.

The screams of the dark woods in his ears, Domor was in no mood to argue. He raised his hands. “Forgive me, my friend. I concede…for the nonce. This is not the time, nor the place, to discuss such things.”

Jerul grinned. “You give in too easily, Velen. I was hoping for a fight. What troubles you?”

“This is what troubles me.” Domor swept his hand toward the wild shrieks that flooded the trees.

He cried out mid-arc as something struck his wrist. His cry of pain and surprise was mirrored by another, much higher in pitch, and then a quiet splash that flung droplets of cold water onto his face. Domor drew his arm to his chest and scurried to the far side of the raft.

Jerul set the oars in a quick motion, locking them in place before retrieving his blades from the deck. Domor stared up at him. The hammer’s blow feeling at his wrist sent throbbing shards of pain down the length of his forearm. He sat stunned.