Robert Newcomb - Rise of the Blood Royal

As was always the case whenever the Suffragat was in session, an eager crowd had gathered on the hill before the Aedifficium steps, waiting to hear news of the meeting. When they saw the war lance in Vespasian’s hand, the crowd joyfully erupted, their rising cheers quickly attracting more curious citizens. Soon the entire area was full to overflowing as the mob eagerly waited for their emperor to speak. When Vespasian lifted the war lance above his head, the crowd went wild.

“The Suffragat has granted you a great campaign!” he shouted.

Gracchus smiled at Benedik. “It seems that our creation can do no wrong,” the lead cleric whispered. “That man was born to end life.”

As Vespasian walked down the hill and toward the coliseum, Persephone took his arm and the Suffragat followed.

In ways that even Vespasian could not have imagined, the die was cast.

HIS NAME WAS ROLF OF THE HOUSE OF BRIGHAM, AND he had hunted the length and breadth of Eutracia’s Hartwick Wood since his father had given him his first bow. Many said that these glens and gullies were deeply enchanted by the craft. Rumor also had it that the woods were the strict provinces of wizards and sorceresses and that these regions should never be entered, lest an intruder come to some dark harm. It was also said that an ancient cave lay in the woods, its opening long sealed by mysterious wizards. Rolf always smirked whenever he heard those old wives’ tales. He had never seen such a cave, and nothing in these woods had ever harmed him.

Even so, Rolf had more in common with the craft than he realized. Shortly after he was born, some men in dark blue robes had come to his parents’ home and taken a drop of his blood for examination. They had then informed his mother and father that he was of fully endowed blood. At the time, such visits were not unusual, for all newborns were once tested this way. It was needed for the nation’s birth records, the mystics had said.

Shortly after, an official-looking certificate, complete with a royal wax seal, had arrived by messenger from Tammerland. Signed by two Directorate Wizards, it attested to the quality of Rolf’s blood. Being unknowledgeable about the craft, his parents had thought little of the matter and filed the parchment away. Over the years the document somehow escaped to wherever so much of life’s flotsam seems to go and hide, never to be seen again. Taken up as they were with the joy of rearing a child, Rolf’s parents never told him of the wizards’ findings. And because he had never been trained in the craft, his blood showed no signature.

Most of the time, Rolf felt as safe here in these woods as he did on the front porch of his modest farmhouse. He had been ten years old when his father had given him his first bow, and twenty-five more Seasons of New Life had passed since. As he expertly moved across the mossy ground, no sound betrayed him.

Rolf’s father was dead, but the birth of his son Dale had helped to fill the void left by his father’s sudden passing. And as his father had done with him, Rolf started teaching the boy archery at the age of seven. Now that Dale was ten, it was time for the young man to learn the ways of the forest. During the last three years the boy had become an excellent bowman. But hitting a standing target and killing a living creature were two different things, and that realization was not lost on the nervous young hunter as he trod alongside his father. Although his hands shook, the boy was overjoyed that this day of days had finally come.

It was late afternoon in Eutracia and the sun was starting to hide behind the tops of the trees. The fading sunlight cast ephemeral beacons onto the forest floor, granting the woods the wonderfully surreal appearance that only this time of day could bring. Soon the night creatures would start to prowl and sing and the stars would compete for space in the dark night sky.

One hour ago, the great stag that Rolf and Dale were tracking had unexpectedly turned north. The beast’s change in direction had been welcome, otherwise the two tired hunters would have been forced to give up and head for home. They had caught a glimpse of their quarry only once, but that had been enough to convince Rolf that the stag was the largest he had ever seen.

As night neared, Rolf hoped that he and Dale would overtake the deer soon. If so, he would let Dale try to make the kill. If the deer was taken, Rolf would partly dress it, leaving the entrails behind to make the carcass lighter to carry. He would then smear some of the deer’s blood onto Dale’s face, signifying the boy’s first kill. His only real concern was to leave the forest before the Hartwick wolves started their nocturnal prowling, for the scent of stag blood would draw them like flies. As they walked side by side, Rolf turned to look at his son.

When Dale reached manhood he would be tall and lean. His hair was dark blond and his sharp eyes were blue. Like his father, he wore a brown leather jerkin, matching breeches, and a narrow, brimless hat with a jaunty pheasant plume pinned along one side. His arrow quiver was strapped across his back, and he nervously held the ancestral family bow in his sweaty hands. A large hunting knife lay in a sheath secured to his belt, and his knee boots were of soft brown leather. The boy was desperately eager and equally worried about pleasing his father. He too had seen the great size of the stag. If he missed, a chance like this one might never come again.

Stopping for a moment, Rolf knelt down on one knee and looked at the ground. He pointed at the tracks that the stag’s hooves had left in the soft moss.

“There,” he said quietly. “Do you see how the tracks have become shallower and closer together? That means that the deer has stopped running. The confused track pattern just ahead tells us that he wandered about here for a time. Something must have caught his interest.”

Standing, Rolf looked around. After a quick search he found a telling sign. Four low branches of a nearby hinteroot tree had been stripped clean of their berries. An even more meaningful clue was that the same tree trunk was scarred where the stag tried to rub the velvet away from this season’s set of new antlers. Rolf called Dale nearer. Narrowing his eyes and rubbing his red beard, Rolf thought for a moment.

“What do these signs tell you?” he asked.

“That our stag was here,” Dale whispered back. “He ate the berries and scratched his horns on the tree trunk.”

Rolf smiled. “How do we know that our deer did these things?” he asked. “It is not uncommon for deer tracks to overrun each other’s. Perhaps we lost him, only to pick up the trail of a different one.”

Dale thought for a moment. “No,” he answered. “He was here. We have not lost him.”

Rolf smiled. “Explain your answer,” he said.

Dale pointed to the ravaged tree trunk. “Only a buck could have done that,” he said, “because a doe has no horns. And the stag we saw still carried his velvet. Odds are that this was done by him rather than by another.”

“Well done,” Rolf said. “But this great confusion of tracks makes it difficult to decide in which direction to go. How do we choose?”

Dale shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered.

Rolf winked. “It has to do with the missing berries.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rolf smiled again. “He was hungry-he ate four branches full of berries. Deer find them delicious, but the berries always cause them thirst. Unless I’m wrong, he’ll soon head for the nearest brook. So we will go east for a time. It’s a gamble, but if I’m right it will be worth it.”

Changing course, Rolf started leading Dale east. As night encroached, they soon found themselves standing atop a bank and looking down toward a swiftly running brook. Dale knew this stream; he had fished here before. It was a good place for Eutracian black-striped trout.