Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 15 – Welcome home

Note: This post past the 20,000 word mark. We sit now at 21, 102. Not too shabby. We close in on a much anticipated event in this section. One that has been building since the start of the story.

Disc 1

Track 15: Hands by The Raconteurs

“’Cause you’re the only one who really knows”

The wailing from the Shadows was constant making sleep impossible for the rest of the trip through the foothills and thinning the horses’ nerves to barely a thread. Oan and Nestor sat awake by the fire each night, barely talking, listening to the fear-drenched screams. They would have kept moving through the nights, but the threachourous terrain and the branches that stabbed out into the paths made it too dangerous in the dark.

Nestor had implored him to leave Kekur uncovered and to carry as if it were the weapon of his choice. After the first day’s travel after the attack, Nestor started crafting a belt with a loop attached from the hide of the boar he had killed. It took the man three nights to stretch it out, dry and form it. He used the buckle from the belt that had been all but destroyed when Nestor had taken his swim in the Belnor. When it was all finished, Nestor handed the belt over.

“Wear that sword in this, and I’ll assure those banshees won’t come near us again,” Nestor said. It was evident that Nestor was not interested in meeting another Gargola.

Oan didn’t think the belt would ever hold the weight of the sword, but as Kekur had done in battle, it lost its weight when worn as a weapon. The sword was peculiar. If he did not know better, he thought it had a personality geared toward battle. How could a sword have a personality?

Oan felt like a traitor to the Alrdoubi by brandishing the sword. The great blades had been a contributor to the rise of Salama and the waste he laid before him. The blades had severed the world when Tarek Grandar cut into the heavens. They had flooded a kingdom. They had drawn an end to one age and the birth of another. Since then, they had been gone, not forgotten, and the consequences had weighed greatly upon the Aldroubi. Now he had stirred the power of Kekur from slumber and, if the old legends were true, when one awoke so did the rest. What had he begun?

The density of the forest was beginning to wane as the elevation gradually increased. The canopy above was still too thick to see through, but he could feel they were closing in on their destination.

Nestor rode behind him, always behind him, humming some tune that Oan did not recognize. It was his attempt to block out the Shadows. They had been riding twelve days since the attack, and still the screaming continued. The only change was the shrillness of the shrieks. Even the Shadows’ voices could handle screaming for only so long.

“Do you handle swords in Nocnil, Nestor,” Oan asked? The man cut off humming in mid tune. A boot connected to a hairy leg and nothing else caught Oan’s eye to their right. It was sticking from below a thorny bush, likely carried there by some animal. It belonged to one of the Shadows. They were killing each other now. It was the third sighting they had had that day.

“Aye, me boy. Our blades are curved like New Moon, not straight like yours there,” Nestor replied.

“Did your ancestors not fear the blade at the end of the last age?”

“Fear? Boy, we lived on the edge of a vast desert that’ll slowly kill you from the inside out if you venture too far and, if that weren’t bad enough, a damned demon was entombed somewhere out there and it was our duty to watch for it. So, no, I says, blades didn’t bother us too much.”

Oan sighed. If he had grown up there, his soul would not feel so stained then.

“Course, my boy, we never made swords like that one you got to feel guilty about. It was those fools in Rion that mixed the blades with some sort of magic that caused all the problems.”

Oan sighed again. Nestor liked to put in jabs about how it was everyone else’s fault for the likes of Salama. He thought maybe it eased his own conscience for his failure at watching the Sorna and stopping the demon’s return.

“Look, when it comes down to it, you’re gonna have to accept using that thing strapped to your waist, my boy. When the battle comes, we all reach for our blades.”

Oan stifled another sigh. The rest of the body belonging to the leg well behind them now was in their path. He dropped off his horse to move it out of the way.

“Perhaps, you can teach me in the sword,” Oan said straining to carry the corpse form the road.

Nestor tilted his head as he sat atop his steed. He made no attempt to help Oan in the task.

“I’ll show what I can, I will, I will.” With that Nestor started humming again.

Oan dropped the body in the bramble never looking at the face. The less he remembered about the Shadows, the better.

Nestor kept humming the rest of the afternoon, as Oan’s mind drifted back and forth between the sword at his hip and the duty ahead. The swordbearer had mention three blades from his dream. How in the world would Oan ever reckon with himself to carry three, when one disturbed his mind every waking moment of the day? Then there was the business of his identity. The swordbearer claimed he was an heir of Marek, not Rion. How could that be?

Every avenue led to one conclusion. The witch. She had to know more. She had to tell him his path. He hated depending on her so much, but she was the only one that could help. Perhaps, it was her that was meant to clash with Salama. She had never talked about that demon being part of his destiny. His fate was always focused on the final great battle. She was the one that worked magic, and used, as she sometimes called it, the Spark. He was a hunter, no more, no less.

Just before dusk turned to night making it too difficult to travel, they came to a clearing and before them rearing up to impossible heights were the snow-topped mountains of Marek. Nestor gave out a whistle. Mountains were not a feature one from the Sorna was used to. It had been a long time since Oan had seem them, and now they seemed to loom twice as high as they had when was a boy.

A flicker of light caught Oan’s eye ahead of them in the rocky hills before the mountains. From deep inside a crevice in the terrain, two green lights pulsed out and seemed to be floating toward them. He heard Nestor fumbling for his spear.

“Don’t move,” Oan whispered.

At the mouth of the cave, the two green orbs stopped and glowed brighter than before. They were mounted atop two tall staffs held firmly by two hands attached to thin, pale arms. She stood out then, chest held out proud, with a warm smile that never touched her eyes. She wore a green dress with gold stitching that was more suited for a grand hall than a cave. He had never seen in her such regal attire and wondered where in the world she had found the garment. To his surprise, he could feel his blood moving faster and his heart pounding. A small part of him felt like he was home and returned to a mother that he had not seen in years. He wanted to jump off the horse and run up and embrace as tight as he could. That feeling, however, was balanced by his other instinct to reach for the sword and drive it through her chest. Kekur burned hotter than ever at his side.

“I have been waiting, my love,” Her voice boomed despite her small stature. “Welcome!”

With that, she brought both staffs down hard into the stone below. He could hear, almost feel, the stone crack and give way. For an instant, a great wave of green shot out into then nearly dark night. Both horses, whinnied up, and it took all of his strength to stay on. Nestor was not so lucky, landing with smack on his rear on the uneven ground below. Oan frowned up at the witch.

“Come now, The Door to Nowhere awaits.”

She turned and was swallowed up in the dark of the cave.