A Saga of Solicia: Orkos Vol. 1 Teaser

A Saga of Solicia:

Orkos

Vol. 1

“He that wears the shackles of the warrior will have walked the golden path, only to deny it; shall be cast out and hidden away for his shame. He will one day interlope with a royal and receive a son, a bastard of birds. He will die and rise again. The beat of his wings will bring about the end.”

-Yaraija, the oracle of prophecy, “The Shambles of The Lost Codices Vol. 1”

Prologue

“Father?”

The bright yellow sun warms the skies above a forest as its trees and their leaves chafe each other, rustling softly. Light peers into the shadowy forest floor, and it sees him, a boy. His stomach ached and gurgled. Sweat, rolled down his face in bullets, showering the lush grassy earth below. His quivering lips came together to swallow. He felt the primal drumbeat and pump in his chest. I need to do it. He felt the blood fill out the lengthy web of cavities within his body, it churned like water in pipes, silencing the world outside the moment. It must be done. His chattering teeth, forced to grit in his tight jaws. A promise was made. His lungs filled and flattened at a runner's pace. The vow that is upheld, the laid path to be walked down upon, that is destiny!

At some point, he had forgotten where he was, and what he was doing. It only took one word, from one voice, to come back into the moment.

“Enough.” Alex froze. He was holding the hunting knife up with both hands, ready to jab down into the stag laying before him. “You're too late.” The words stung. The boy lowered his arms and sat his teary eyes on the dead stag. Blood pooled from it, dying the grass in a wet-red blackness. He finally remembered, he let the stag bleed to death, as he froze. The shrieking cries, although delayed in his mind, had come back, and haunted him, flipping his stomach on the inside. Suddenly, his belly erupted, and vomit spewed as he lunged away croaking.

A large man stepped from the shadows, and the light caught onto a sturdily built body under a dark cotton tunic, his long blonde hair seemed to drape upon his simple rags fashioned into clothes. He looked at the boy, concerned. He kneels next to the boy, and grabs his little hands softly, taking the knife sheathing it into his brown leather belt. It took both of his little hands to grip it, and yet in a man's possession, it took only one.

Alex looked back over his shoulder at the arrow stuck in its abdomen. He remembered the doubt, the questions that ran through his mind, he quivered so much, he wavered and shook his aim. He saw the badly aimed arrow strike into the lower stomach of the poor beast and felt his heart hurdle through space.

Remorse soured the boy's face. “Easy now. It's alright, I know it's hard for you. You have such a kind soul, and that is something I am most grateful for.” Pulling away some, the child ganders into his father’s steely blue eyes, seeking confirmation, and finding it in his bearded smile. Getting up, Karta picked up the stag and threw it over his shoulder like it was only a heavy sack.

The boy sat on his knee, heavy with thought. “Kindness is what made him suffer,” he muttered under breath.

Karta heard the mutters clearly and felt the sinking ache in his chest. Something had broken there for some time now, and the pains always seemed to come back more frequently as he watched his son grow older. They were shards of imaginary glass left to sink deeper. “Come now, your mother will lecture us if we stay out too late.” He reaches out his muscled arm and hand towards his boy. Alex nods in agreement and grasps his father's hand as they start walking out of the woods.

“I’m sorry I couldn't do it, I really tried but I didn't think I had enough power behind it, I was afraid of hurting it more. I didn't want it to suffer.” Alex stated gloomily. His father looked down at him, his shadowed face made his steely eyes look fierce. “Power…” He began to speak, and Alex turned his head towards him. “You confuse it with strength.” Alex's face began to puzzle. “The two are very different, and many people will tell you otherwise, but in the end the truth is the same.” They stop, Karta kneels, and peers into Alex's ocean blue eyes. “Power is only for those who have the strength to lift it and wield it. You couldn't kill the stag because what you lack is not “power”, or strength. What you lack is resolve.” Karta spoke these words as he looked into his son's eyes intensely. The seasoned eyes returned in that one moment, and his son saw the stranger.

The stranger only came at times when there was danger, or fear. Alex remembers the year before when they were hunting farther east in the forest. Howls sounded through the thickness of trees and mist, and they jumped from the shadows, wolves, hunting for prey of their own. They were met with the other predator, the stranger. They now drape over him and his mother with the cold nights in winter. Alex could never argue, wolf pelts were the softest thing they owned.

It was small and short, but Alex stepped back with instinct, his body has learned to fear the predator. Karta saw the fear creep into his little eyes, and broke eye contact, returning to pace. “And kindness…” he looked at him over his shoulder. “In this world, the kindest thing you can truly give-” His father had returned, Alex could tell by the voice and the words, that it was no longer the stranger that had possessed him, the strange ghost who made his little body nervous, had left. “Is mercy.”

“Father?” the boy looked up at him, his small eyes drowning in the deep crimson color of the mark that wrapped itself around Karta’s throat, a dark red hand choking him. The boy was young but felt strange and had always feared the mark. “What is it? The mark on your neck?” Karta looked away, laughed off the question. “It's just a birthmark.” Something made the boy feel strange as he glanced at the back of his father’s hair. He wasn’t sure, but for a moment he thought his father was brooding. Something he had noticed usually late at night before bed. Alex followed closely behind as they left the forest, reassured by the presence of his father, as the stranger never brooded.

They returned home to their wood and straw farmhouse with the stag, which Karta’s wife, Ingrid, had prepped and cooked for supper that night. Alex was tucked into bed by his mother, before joining Karta in their own bed, where they spoke most often to each other. Silence had fallen on both as they sat on opposite sides of the bed. “When do you leave?” she asked, turning towards him. “A few days from now, I have to visit the capital and gather the team that's going to accompany me. I will come back here and see you and Alex off before leaving for Harbor town.” Karta said dolefully. “How long?” his wife looked at him, fear gripping her eyes. “Five years.” the words stung her in the chest. She braced herself with her hands, before wailing into them quietly, “But they have always let you come back, to rest and visit, so it's not like we won't see you again.” her eyes turned on him with a woefulness in them. Karta didn't have the strength to look back at her, he stared into the dark corner of the bedroom where the candlelight couldn't reach. “No, it won't be like last time. I can visit, but I can tell that this time it's different,” She wanted to deny the tone her husband was giving her, she didn't want it, none of it. But there he was, as open as he ever was. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think I'm coming back from this one. I feel it, it's in the air, Ingrid. Fear. The stench breathes in my face whenever I visit that wretched keep. It rides through the lungs of all of them. It's everywhere. She has a hold on all of them, even him, Ingrid. A hold that I can't shake.”

“You mean, Khu?”

“Yes.”

“Then we must leave! We must go. We need to escape from her and everyone else! We need to pack tonight-” Ingrid jumped from her covers, and started shoving clothes in a sack, frantically. “No,” Ingrid froze at the command. “You will stay, and forget me, forget the traitor, and maybe in time the queen will forget and believe too. They will be forced to keep it from the public, and that means Alex won’t have a traitor for a father.”

Karta didn't want to believe the words he was saying himself, but the truth was there, and he was not the man that dared to deny the truth. Turning his head, his eyes laid upon his wife, who hid midway under her fur covers sobbing quietly. He lays next to her, putting his arm around her waist, and kisses her softly on her cheek. They both stare into flame lit on their nightstand candle. “I don't know if Alex is ready to lose a father.” Ingrid whispered dejectedly.

“No one ever is. I sure wasn't, even growing up around the arena, I never expected him to die. It just happened. I was helpless, powerless to do anything that would prevent it. But it gave me sight, perspective, even as that era has long passed. I hope he grows up to never learn the truth, to never see the lie, and live happily.” His voice began to crack as he realized that the words, he spoke made his chest ache, and grimaced, recognizing the disgust he felt in himself.

Ingrid's voice rose to challenge this attitude Karta had adopted in the last few years, under the pressure of the imperial rule, “No, you don't. It makes you sick.” Ingrid's voice died quietly into a whisper, as he went quiet, pondering the future.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “But at least the boy will have had a father and not a traitor.” He held Ingrid tighter, before blowing out the candle. She watched as the smoke danced in the rays of moonlight shining in the worn spaces between planks. “A ghost of one.”

to be continued in the full volume!

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